Detox January, Week 2: Bake Sale Chocolate Muffins

Two-ingredient chocolate and pumpkin muffins -- so good, they're even bake-sale-worthy.

Chocolate muffins (or cupcakes, if you prefer)

Chocolate muffins, OK, but I bet you're wondering about the bake sale part, right?

There's a backstory...

I recently learned that there is a backlash developing against the resurgence of interest in domesticity or what we of a certain age learned long ago as "home economics." I know, I know, this shouldn't be news, right? I mean, every time something becomes popular or trendy, a backlash ensues, yes?

So now baking is under fire.

(Not to mention raising chickens, but that's off-topic right now. )

This all came to a head when a contributor in The New York Times bemoaned the fact that people have actually been offering up Oreos or other store-bought treats as fodder for fund-raising bake sales. She apparently started an online uproar (summarized excellently by Jennifer Reese over at The Tipsy Baker), which has spiraled into an attack on what one of her critics calls the current "anti-feminist homemaker fetish."

Yipes. All she suggested was that you might actually want to BAKE for a bake sale.

So, as an Anti-Feminist Homemaker Fetish-ite, I offer up the following as a peace offering for the two camps:

Delicious, bake sale-worthy, low-fat/low-calorie/low-Weight-Watchers-points* chocolate muffins (or cupcakes, if you prefer) that even the busiest CEO can find time to make.

 As with last week's Nutella popsicles, the "recipe" is so simple that I don't need to give you a recipe. Simply combine one box of Devil's Food Cake Mix (I used Betty Crocker Super Moist) with one 15-ounce can of pumpkin puree, mix it all up in a bowl, spoon into paper-lined muffin cups and bake at 400 degrees for 15-20 minutes.

They came together so quickly that I had to wait around for my oven to finish pre-heating. And the taste will not let you down: the pumpkin gives the muffins and incredible moistness without any pumpkin-y flavor.

So why not join me in being "retrograde," "oppressive," "anti-feminist" and just a big old let-down to the female gender in general and whip up some of these yummy muffins?

Snort.

Many thanks to my foodie friend Maria for sharing this recipe via Facebook and letting me know that it came from The Hungry Girl Cookbook by Lisa Lillien.

* If you make 12 muffins (which will be large), each muffin contains 181 calories and 3.5 grams of fat and is worth 4 WW points. I made 16 medium-sized muffins, so each one would have fewer calories and grams of fat, but I'm too lazy to do the math for you.

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