Chocolate Lava Muffins

When we have birthdays in this group, we've tried to make an effort to make a nice dinner for the birthday critter. Down below we have details on Dan's birthday dinner this past year, and for Cory, we ended up making chili. Megan put together a lovely pot of chili, which I don't have a lot of details on. She doesn't really cook by a recipe, instead just throwing stuff in a pot and letting it simmer. Which, I suppose, is the way chili should be made. However, there is one great thing about the chili: Eli had a truly epic brainwave. Check this out:



Apologies for the cel phone photo - my phone does far better than most, but I wish I could have used a real camera for the majesty that is that photo. That is chili topped with Cheetos. I highly recommend you give that a try. It is so choice. And if you don't like Cheetos, I weep for your lack of enjoyment of life.

Anyway, the other thing I whipped together were some Chocolate Lava Muffins. I usually use Alton Brown's recipe, but there are a couple of things about the recipe that are off. For starters, there is no way in hell that that recipe yields a dozen 4-oz scoops of batter. I use a #12 disher (which is 2 2/3 ounces) and usually get nine muffins out of it. I use a normal muffin tin, and make sure you spray it liberally with spray, because they will overflow the cups a little bit. The other thing about that recipe is that the cooking time is off. I believe it usually ends up taking more like 14 minutes, but I start peeking at them at 10 minutes (without opening the door). The cooking time does tend to vary. At any rate, the batter is really easy to throw together, and they're always delicious. Here's what they look like, in a seriously craptastic photo: