Coffee Chocolate Mini Chip Muffins

It is fun to customize our Easy Vanilla Muffin recipe. If you keep the proportions of sugar, flour, fat and liquid fairly steady, you can go off road and try any number of flavor combinations. Coffee Chocolate Mini Chip Muffins look and taste like a decadent coffee house muffin, yet, they are only 3 ingredients away from our basic vanilla muffin recipe!

Here, we kept the amount of sugar the same and substituted dark brown sugar for part of the total. We added instant espresso powder to the milk mixture to give the muffin a pleasing coffee flavor (one tester swears these muffins taste like coffee ice cream, YUM!). Finally, mini chocolate chips were added to give these muffins a hit of chocolate in each bite.

Coffee Chocolate Mini Chip Muffins freeze like a dream. These are definitely the muffins to have on hand for breakfast and leisurely weekend brunches. Why stop there? These muffins are delicious with stew, chili and weeknight sheet pan dinners. This recipe is a keeper!

Dry Ingredients:

2 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup granulated sugar

1/4 cup dark brown sugar

1 Tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 cup chocolate mini chips

Wet Ingredients:

1 cup plus 2 Tablespoons milk

2 Tablespoons instant espresso powder

2 large eggs, room temperature, beaten

1 Tablespoon vanilla extract

8 Tablespoons (1 stick) melted, unsalted butter

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly spray a 12 cup muffin pan with non-stick baking spray and fill the cups with paper baking cup liners. Put the muffin pan on top of a baking sheet and set aside.

2. In a large bowl, add the flour, sugars, baking powder and salt. Stir the mixture with a whisk or fork to blend and break up the brown sugar. Add the chocolate mini chips and stir until they are evenly distributed in the flour mixtures. Set bowl aside.

3. Add the milk to a glass beaker or medium-sized bowl. Add the espresso powder and stir until blended with the milk. Add the beaten eggs and vanilla. Stir until the liquids are blended. Add the melted butter and stir until blended with the milk mixture. Using a spoon or the back of a measuring scoop, make a well in the center of the flour mixture. Stir the milk mixture and pour into the center of the flour well. Stir the muffins until just blended. Some lumps in the batter are OK.

4. Equally divide the batter between the 12 muffin cups. Bake the muffins for 15 to 20 minutes or until they are light golden brown around the edges. Cool the muffins in the pan for 10 minutes. Remove the muffins from the pan and place on a wire cooling rack and cool until room temperature. Serve.

Recipe ©Sally James Mathis

Photography ©Taylor Mathis