Cherry Chocolate Chip Muffins

I love the combination of cherries and chocolate, so when my oldest asked if we could make muffins ("from scratch," he specified), I decided to try a cherry-chocolate chip muffin.

The thing that's great about baking is that if you know a basic recipe, you can tweak it pretty easily. You could easily change this recipe and replace the cherries with blueberries or the chocolate chips with nuts (or both) or use whatever combination your heart desires - for my 5 year old, that would be all chocolate chips!

Ingredients:

• 2 C. AP flour
• 2/3 C. sugar
• 2 tsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1 C. pitted, diced sweet cherries
• 1/2 C. chocolate chips
• 1/2 C. butter (1 stick), melted and cooled
• 2 eggs
• 2/3 C. milk
• 1 tsp. vanilla

Mix the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add the cherries and chocolate chips and mix to coat (I find this helps keep them from sinking to the bottom of the muffin). In a separate bowl, mix the melted butter (make sure it's cool or you may cook the eggs), eggs, milk, and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until just combined. Spoon the batter into 12 greased muffin cups (they will be nearly full). Bake at 400 for 15-20 minutes, until light golden brown. Cool for 10 minutes before removing from the pan, then eat them warm or cool on a wire rack before serving.