bakery style espresso chocolate chunk muffins
When I bake with chocolate, I don’t screw around. Chocolate batter, heaps of chocolate chunks, chocolate streusel. Spring fruits are great and I adore them in many a dish and treat, but nothing wins a coup against a good old fashioned chocolate-rich recipe.
Now that I’m done with my Ted Talk, let’s get on with the goods, these Bakery Style Espresso Chocolate Chunk Muffins.
Strangely – or maybe it’s not strange, depends on who you ask – I rarely eat muffins for breakfast. Early hours synergize with muffin consumption but I really enjoy them later in the day with coffee or tea, probably because I’m famished in the morning after my training sessions and need a little something more to satiate my muscles.
Not to dissuade anyone from chowing down on a moist, fudgy muffin bright and spankin’ early. In fact, I encourage it. A stray from your typical morning bowl of oats may be just what you need to emerge from a rut, if you find yourself rutting.
So these bad boys are an Eiffel Tower of chocolate. Plain and simple. The base contains butter, buttermilk, and Greek yogurt for an extra soft crumb, and brown sugar to deepen the flavor. My version of buttermilk is almost always nondairy milk mixed with something vinegary, such as vinegar (SHOCKING) or lemon juice, since I near never buy an actual carton due to waste prospects.
Then, a scoop of dark chocolate chunks or chips swirled into the batter, which contains cocoa powder and espresso or coffee to amalgamate into an edible mocha latte.
I finalize the excessive chocolate slam with a quick streusel made with cocoa powder, flour, brown sugar, and butter. You don’t really need the streusel, but you want it. You want it bad.
If I may bust into a tangent (better than a sin or cosin, am I right?), this week marks an exciting shift in my ability to resume some normal life activities. I’ll be a week and a half removed, roughly, from my second COVID vaccination, so J and I are celebrating Sunday by attending a baseball game and venturing out for an actual restaurant dinner.
The Saturday prior, a local berry farm has a listed U-Pick slot that we intend to mosey into in order to pick as many bloobs as we can. Plethora of blueberry recipes forthcoming? Probably. There’s one in the books Friday, in fact, though not directly related to berry picking.
Amazing how much I’ve come to value these little excursions – and even more so, I’d imagine, the trip we’re taking in June. With everyday luxuries mostly stripped in 2020 and avoided still in the early pages of this calendar year, any time now that I can operate without intense fear or uncertainty is a blessing. Granted, I am surrounded by abnormalcy and will be for a good amount of time, and for valiant reasons. Masking up at work, at the grocery store, at the pool. My mind is not healed of the gut-plummeting anxiety that rose up and clutched my throat. But I feel that my heartbeat has largely normalized, I’m not as stifled by the circumstances. Even with a cloth covering over my mouth, I feel I can breathe better.
Worth acknowledging with a muffin, I think.
Tried this recipe out? Leave a comment below with your thoughts, and don’t forget to come say hi on Instagram and show me what you made!
Need more muffin recipes?
Chai Spiced Dark Chocolate Almond Butter Swirl Muffins
Healthier Greek Yogurt Bran Muffins with Mandarin Orange, Candied Ginger, and Coconut
Herb Garlic Butter Popovers (ok, not a muffin technically, but close enough)
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup butter, melted (1 stick)
- 1/2 cup brown sugar
- 1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt
- 2 eggs, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup buttermilk, or vegan buttermilk (see note)
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
- 1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 tbsp instant coffee or espresso
- 3/4 cup dark chocolate chips
chocolate streusel
- 1/2 cup all purpose flour
- 3 tbsp cocoa powder
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 4 tbsp butter, cold
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line a 12 slot muffin tin with muffin liners, or grease well with butter or oil.
- In a large bowl, whisk together butter, brown sugar, Greek yogurt, eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla until smooth. Add flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, instant espresso/coffee, and whisk until incorporated. Fold in chocolate chips with a spatula.
- In a separate small bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, and brown sugar. Cut in cold butter until small pea-sized crumbs are formed.
- Scoop about 1/4 cup of batter into each muffin tin. Sprinkle streusel overtop.
- Bake muffins for 20-25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.. Remove from oven and let cool 5 minutes in the tin, then remove muffins to a wire cooling rack for at least 10 minutes. Serve still warm or at room temperature.
