Chocolate chip muffins infused with coffee and walnuts.

If you are looking for a quick and easy dessert (or in my case, a delicious breakfast), you should try these Mocha-Walnut Chip Muffins.






The other morning, aka around 11:30 a.m. on Saturday, Katrina and I were going through our morning rituals of walking Simon and checking our Farms on Facebook, whereupon the usual weekend hunger pains kicked in.  It was a cold weekend in Chicago and we had eaten out quite a bit recently, so a late breakfast in the city was out of the question.  Ok, eating out was a perfectly valid option, but we were far too lazy after a week of work and the preceding holiday weekend to shower and venture out  Our options were eggs, but no breakfast meat, stale cereal, and oatmeal purchased last winter.  I set off on the web in search of something delicious that would incorporate some of the staple ingredients I knew we had.  I settled on this muffin recipe adapted from the Frog Commissary Cookbook.


Eat them warm!

ingredients (makes 12):

See print friendly version

  • 1/2 c salted sweet cream butter (original recipe calls for unsalted)
  • 3/4 c brown sugar
  • 1/4 c granulated sugar
  • 2 tbs. instant espresso powder
  • 2 tsp. pure vanilla extract
  • 2 eggs
  • 2/3 c 1% milk
  • 1-3/4 c flour
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1 tbs. baking powder
  • 4 oz. semi-sweet chocolate chips (Ghirardelli)
  • 1 heaping palmful of chopped walnuts

directions:

  1. Preheat oven to 350F.
  2. Grease and flour 12 muffin pan cups (or use your favorite silicon baking cups).
  3. Using hand mixer, combine softened butter, brown sugar, granulated sugar, espresso powder, and vanilla until thoroughly mixed.  It will look like a crumble at this point.  Use a large mixing bowl for this step, because this is where all the magic will happen later.
  4. In a separate small bowl, use a fork or whisk to beat eggs and milk.
  5. In a similarly sized bowl, combine flour, salt, and baking powder.  Their powers combined create self rising flour.
  6. Add the wet ingredients to the sugar mixture, stir a bit, and then fold in your flour mixture until it is just combined.  Don’t try to get every teeny tiny clump out.  This will ruin your muffins!
  7. Throw in the chocolate chips and nuts.
  8. Spoon evenly in to all twelve of your muffin cups.  Lick the spoon and bowl if you dare!
  9. Bake for 22-27 minutes, then remove from pan to cool.
  10. Eat!


Whip up a cream cheese frosting for a delicious dessert, or cut one open and melt some flavored butter as an accompaniment to Sunday brunch!


If you enjoyed this recipe, try these!