Instructions: In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the cocoa, flour, sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt and chocolate chips. Set aside.

In a large measuring cup or medium- sized mixing bowl, whisk together the eggs, milk, vanilla and vinegar. Add the wet ingredients, along with the melted butter or margarine, to the dry ingredients, stirring to blend; theres no need to beat these muffins, just make sure everything is well- combined.

Scoop the batter into 12 lightly greased muffin cups. Bake the muffins in a preheated 425F oven for 15 to 20 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean (watch them closely, as theyll burn around the edges if they bake too long). Remove the muffins from the oven, and after 5 minutes remove them from the pan, allowing them to cool slightly on a wire rack before serving.

Yield: 12 muffins

NOTES : Chocolate - for breakfast? Hey, loosen up - its the holidays. After all, you used to drink hot chocolate when you were a kid, right? And if you were in Paris right now, you might be standing on the corner outside the local boulangerie, a steaming cup of cafe au lait in one hand and a fresh petit pain au chocolat in the other. Chocolate for breakfast? Go for it.

My personal memories of hot chocolate begin with Franklins Drugstore in Glastonbury, Connecticut, the town in which I grew up. Im sure there were drugs and heating pads and stuff like that somewhere in Franklins, but we kids thought of Franklins strictly as the local source for candy and comic books and baseball cards. Each Sunday my dad would give us a nickel after church, and wed agonize over the pink bubble gum cigars, wax lips, and giant SweeTarts. (If we were lucky enough to get a dime, rock candy was the hands-down choice.) I remember vividly Dad plopping the Hartford Courant down on the counter, and each of us three kids adding our nickel treasure on top. After that it was a stop at the Colonial Bakery (half-moon cookies, golden cupcakes, chocolate eclairs), then home to a big breakfast of cinnamon coffee cake and scrambled eggs, followed by Sunday dinner - a quaint old custom involving a Roast and Vegetables and Company, which many of you probably remember.

So where does the hot chocolate come in? Franklins also had a "soda fountain," a counter with tall revolving stools where you could sit and get a dish of ice cream, a grilled cheese sandwich, a cup of coffee - any of that typical drugstore fare. The counter at Franklins was the place where locals met to discuss the weather, town politics, or maybe the upcoming harvest; at that time, Glastonbury still harbored a significant number of tobacco and corn fields, and peach and apple orchards. My dad, principal of the local junior high and a lifelong avid coffee drinker, liked to drop by Franklins for a cup. And sometimes, if I was on hand at just the right moment, I got to go with him. "Where are you going, Daddy?" "Crazy, want to come along?" I knew that meant we were going downtown, with a visit to Franklins in the offing.

I remember in particular a winter day, dark gray with heavy, wet snowflakes falling that filled the streets and sidewalks with slush. We entered Franklins, Dad and I, to a blast of hot, steamy air, redolent of wet wool from the faintly steaming coats of those whod just come in from the snowy afternoon. I was very small; the men at the counter, towering above me on the revolving stools, looked very big. But Dad lifted me up beside him, and suddenly I was big, too; I felt important and old. He ordered a cup of coffee for himself, a hot chocolate for me.

Paul the druggist delivered identical thick crockery mugs, both steaming, mine sporting a froth of whipped cream on top. I spooned up the whipped cream, then slowly twirled on my chair, waiting for the chocolate to cool, and wishing my sister or brother could be there to see what a big shot I was. At that moment - harbored against the storm in a warm, bright room, surrounded by a crowd of benign adults, and drinking hot chocolate - I was at a place every child should be more than once in their life: safe, warm, loved, and fed. That singular memory, in all its incarnations - mental, emotional and physical - has stayed with me to this day. Thanks, Dad!

The following muffins are rich and tender, high-rising, and deep chocolate, both in color and flavor. Warm from the oven, spread with butter or raspberry jam, theyre a totally decadent way to greet the day. While we offer them here in our holiday issue, we recommend them anytime you feel like treating yourself to something really special. And, by the way, they dont need to be relegated to the breakfast table; frosted with fudgy icing, they double as an awesome cupcake. A final aside - one of the King Arthur taste-tester comments we received was as follows: "This is the best chocolate thing Ive ever had to eat in my whole life, and the best thing Ive ever eaten here at King Arthur." Fair praise, indeed! - P.J.H.

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