I thought I’d break up my fruit bonanza (berry mojitos, balsamic cherry parfaits, blackberry buttercream cake, tart cherry popsicles, etc..) with some good ol’ chocolate chunk muffins.
What I thought would be a quick little recipe turned into my weekend project. There was sweat, curse words, and a lot of messed up muffins. I don’t even want to admit to the number of times I went to the store and the amount of chocolate I bought. The thing is, the muffins didn’t taste bad, they actually tasted really good, they just looked like hell.
And isn’t half of the part of eating, how good it looks?! No one wants a flabby muffin top, not anywhere.
My biggest problem was that I couldn’t get my muffins to RISE! Once they started to puff past the tops of the liners, they just fell flat. If I had taken a picture from the top of the first batch, they’d have looked more like chocolate chip cookies rather than muffins. No bueno!
I tried more baking soda, higher oven temperature, way higher oven temperature and then cooling it down mid way through, new baking soda, new baking powder, reducing the amount of batter in the liner, increasing the amount of batter in the liner. (Ok – you get it, I tried EVERYTHING!)
You know what worked – increasing the flour. That was it! I also increased the oven temperature about 25 degrees, but I really think my biggest issue was the flour.
Was all that work worth it – hell yes! I end up with super chocolate chunk, moist on the inside, with a crusty shell exterior, that puffed up perfectly and taste ahhhh-mazing, muffins. So amazing that I burned the roof of my mouth eating one of these (words of wisdom – let the chocolate cool just a bit before you break it in half and shove the whole thing in your mouth.)
These were amazing for breakfast and last night for dinner I was really craving a cookie and these totally worked instead! Now let’s just have a moment of silence for those other 36 chocolate chunk muffins that perished during this experiment.
chocolate chunk muffins
- ¾ cup (1½ sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
- ¾ + 2 tablespoons sugar, plus more for sprinkling
- 1 teaspoon kosher salt
- 2 eggs
- 1½ cup all-purpose flour
- ¼ cup almond flour (I just ground up raw almonds into a flour)
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 6 ounces plain whole yogurt
- 1½ teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- 10 ounces dark chocolate chunks
Instructions
- Position oven rack into the middle of the oven and preheat at 375 degrees F. Line two muffin tin with liners.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together butter, sugar and salt until fluffy, about 1-2 minutes.
- Add the eggs, one at at time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down the bowl as needed.
- Turn off mixer and add both flours, baking powder, baking soda, yogurt and vanilla. Mix together until just combine.
- Remove bowl from mixer and add chocolate, stirring to incorporate by hand.
- Fill the muffin liners almost to the top with the batter. Sprinkle with a little sugar and then cook 18-22, or until a toothpick is inserted and just a few moist crumbs come up. Be careful not to over bake.
- Let cook 5 minutes before serving.
- These keep in an airtight bag at room temperature for 3 days or can be kept in a plastic container in the refrigerator for 7 days.
Notes
This recipe was adapted from Zoe Nathan’s Huckleberry cookbook.
