Mini Chocolate Chunk Walnut Muffins (Tuesdays with Dorie)

I hope that everyone had a great 4th of July. Don't you hate having to jump back into the week after having a free Monday? It's like being forced to wear a wet, wool sweater.

After missing a few several Tuesdays with Dorie recipes, I didn't want to start July off by playing hooky again. To be honest, I've been in a bit of a bakers slump lately, almost as though my bakers mojo has disappeared like flour into cookie dough. Neurotic nut job Alert: I absolutely cannot stand to fail, at anything. Failure manifests into a deep brain itch that I can't scratch, and I become an irritable mess. The pasty phyllo dough is the culprit. Basically I know what happened with the dough, and I can blame the heat and humidity just to pacify my bakers ego. But it's more of a cover story than the truth, which is that I somehow messed up on something relatively simple. That knowledge threw a monkey wrench into my little baking world, and left me feeling uninspired. Plus (yeah, I know, whine whine whine), I've had a string of foodie site photo rejections. After snapping food shots for over 2 years, rejections sting. And again, I could blame external forces, such as bright summer sun or lack of a tripod, but I know that it's my passion for taking photos that's wearing thin.

The fear of failure and rejection has made me less than enthusiastic to bake, let along blog about my silly hangups. But after a lot of over-thinking and obsessing, I finally remembered that one of the reasons for starting this blog was to get over the crazy idea that everything had to be perfect. Baking, like life, rises and sinks, and I/we can't always expect everything to be fluffy and soft all the time. When things get tough and dry, that's when we need to dig in and keep going. So I dusted off my apron (I don't actually wear one), grabbed Dorie's book, and went back to work. Luckily these muffins are easy to make and were a sweet stepping-stone to rediscovering my baking prowess. My photo-taking confidence...not so much, but it'll come. Overcast skies are a point and shoot food bloggers best friend, not these blasted sunny days. :)

The only change that I made to the recipe, aside from making small muffins, was adding about 1/2 cup of chopped walnuts (just to finally be rid of the last Baklava-Gate reminder.) The muffins were delightfully moist and chocolaty. If you don't mind having chocolate before noon (who would?), these muffins are a perfect coffee companion. For the recipe, please visit Bridget, of The Way the Cookie Crumbles. Thanks Bridget! Your pick procured more than just a dozen muffins.

Psst... if you want to find some ridiculously adorable clip art and tape strips for your photos and blog, head on over to Pugly Pixel. After spending an entire weekend looking through Katrina's site, I turned into a font fanatic/graphic art geek. And I'm ♥-ing every minute of it. :D