Good Morning: Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Muffins

There’s a notion in my heart that when I hear or read the word muffins I think of wholesome produce themed quick breads.

Muffins say Good Morning. They can be a quick snack during the day and welcoming with evening tea. If you’ll take a peek at the Muffin Madness series on this site, you’ll notice the fondness for fruit or vegetable laden muffins with nuts. Part of my comfort food repertoire.

This morning I woke up with chocolate on my mind. I like chocolate, but wouldn’t consider myself a chocoholic. Over the more recent last years, I have arrived in appreciating more varieties of chocolate and their place in baking and cooking. It can really balance out the flavors of a dish or dessert…and the right chocolate paired with a lovely wine makes all the difference on your palate.

I worked a makeover for a recipe I found on Chocolate Chip Muffins in an attempt for a healthier muffin. The original recipe called for a 1/4 cup of vegetable oil…that’s on top of the 1/4 cup of butter AND 2/3 cups of buttermilk! That’s a lot of fat for muffins, so I substituted unsweetened applesauce for the vegetable oil. Other modifications like using the lowest fat content buttermilk, adding oatmeal, the applesauce, adding nuts and mixing up the chocolate chips…made for a great textured muffin.

The sweetness in these muffins stems from the chocolate chips, not the bread part. Sprinkle the tops with raw/turbinado sugar for texture.   I really liked how these muffin with chocolate chips turned out.   It wasn’t too sweet making me feel like I needed a glass of milk to wash it down (although milk with these muffins would be lovely too!).

Don’t Despair – The Muffins’ Bottoms = Great Texture
When baking up a batch of muffins, I don’t usually use baking papers unless there’s an ingredient in the batter that will make them sticky. I used baking papers on this batch and was initially dismayed when pulling the muffins out of the tin that it looked very “oily” on the muffin bottoms through the papers.     I gently pulled the papers off of each muffin and was pleasantly surprised that they were not “greasy”/”oily” when stripping the papers off.   Instead it gave the bottom of the muffins a lovely texture (like when you fry bread but without being greasy).     Take a look at the accompanying images and notice the bottom is a caramelized color.   Let the muffins cool for about 10 minutes, then gently pull the baking papers off all the muffins to avoid their getting soggy. You won’t regret this extra step. The texture is great and the muffin is moist enough without being greasy.

These taste great warm or at room temperature…but best when they’re slightly warm.

• Used unsweetened applesauce in place of vegetable oil.
• If you don’t have a mix of chocolate chips, using all of one or the other is fine too.
• If you don’t use nuts in the batter, you could easily increase the chocolate chips for a total of 2 cups.
• Sprinkling the tops with raw/turbinado sugar is optional, but it does add a nice texture to the muffin tops.
• Use baking papers for these muffins. After baking and per directions below, remove the baking papers to avoid soggy muffin bottoms.
Other Suggestions – Making these again, I would:
• Increase the whole wheat flour to 1 cup AND decrease the all-purpose flour to 1 cup.
• Use 1/2 cup of light brown sugar AND decrease granulated sugar to 1/2 cup.
• Adding 1/4 cup of shredded coconut could be a nice addition.

Notice the beautiful caramelized bottom part of the muffins.
Remove the muffin papers promptly for these muffins to avoid it becoming soggy.