Chocolate Chocolate-Chunk Muffins Kickstart Your Day

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It’s impossible not to smile at the sight of these homemade chocolate muffins with chocolate chunks (or chips). Ever since I learned how to make muffins, I’ve made many a muffin, and these rank right up there.

These lovelies were found in Baking: From My Home to Yours (2006) by Dorie Greenspan. Not only is this the first muffin recipe I’ve made by Dorie Greenspan, it’s the first anything I’ve made by Dorie — and I give it extra super fantastic high marks.

If you want to jump right to the recipe, use the Table of Contents below or stick around for a little cookbook chatter.

Table of Contents

1. Left Brain or Right Brain?
2. Baking: From My Home to Yours Cookbook by Dorie Greenspan
3. Baking Chocolate-Chocolate Chunk Muffins
4. Dorie Greenspan’s Recipe for Chocolate Muffins
5. Chocolate Muffins for the Morning
6. Cookbooks by Dorie Greenspan
7. Related Recipes

Left Brain or Right Brain?

In an interview with Elissa Altman (author, food writer, radio show host, guitar/banjo/mandolin player in “roots music,” and then some), Dorie and Elissa discussed how people seem to consider themselves either bakers or cooks, wondering if it was a left brain/right brain kind of thing.

Dorie shared an interesting tidbit I thought you’d like:

I got fired from that job for putting prunes in the cake. Remember Le Doris cake from Simca’s Cuisine—it was chocolate with almonds and whiskey-soaked raisins?

That was the restaurant’s signature cake, and I replaced the raisins with prunes. And the whiskey with Armagnac. I just got bored doing the same thing the same way. Fired. Fired!

I then went to work for Sarabeth Levine (at Sarabeth’s Kitchen), and I left before they could fire me. I just didn’t like doing the same thing over and over again.

So if we hold with the differences between bakers and cooks, maybe there was a cook inside of me all along!

Dorie Greenspan, Interview with Dorie Greenspan: Poor Man’s Feast by Elissa Altman, Accessed October 28, 2020.

Okay, I kind of get it, but I also like when I can get to the point where I can bake something and have Breaking Benjamin playing in the background, without feeling distracted or thinking too hard, or turning down my jam because I have to pay closer attention to what I’m doing.

When a kid wanders in, we can talk, and I don’t have to have them wait a second while I reread a recipe or try to puzzle something out — when I can just be one with the process.

But, maybe that’s part of my “home baker” status. But then again, I do take pleasure in the routine in general. So maybe that is a left brain/right brain thing there. What do you think?

Baking: From My Home to Yours Cookbook by Dorie Greenspan

I feel like Dorie is one of us. I know I’ve said that before. Well, okay, she’s one of us if we divided our time between New York, Connecticut, and Paris. Oh la la! Maybe she’s mostly one of us, except for that extra bit of fanciness that includes living abroad.

I use Google Maps to get around the next town over, so I can’t even imagine all the lost I would get in a whole different country. However, you can bet I’m willing to try should the opportunity present itself.

Why don’t I own a Dorie Greenspan cookbook yet? Until I do, I covet those I find at the library. Each of the 519 pages in Baking: From My Home to Yours (2006) has a purpose. You know what I mean?

Some cookbooks include extra stuff that sort of feels like it was included to hit a certain page count. Not this one. At 8.38 x 1.64 x 10.88 inches and just over 230 recipes, Baking: From My Home to Yours is no small thing.

Chapters include: Introduction, Breakfast Sweets, A Cache of Cookies, Cakes of All Kinds, Pies and Tarts (Warm and Cold, Fruity and Nutty, Creamy and Crunchy), Spoon Desserts (Puddings, Custards, Crisps, and Ice Creams), and Indispensables (Base Recipes).

Want an idea of what else you’ll find in this book? Carrot Spice Muffins (okay, you know I’d skip the raisins), Allspice Crumb Muffins (I bet those smell amazing), and Coffee Break Muffins (made with coffee). Keep flipping and every page practically calls out with a different “must make” kind of recipe.

French Chocolate Brownies, Chocolate-Cherry Biscotti, Almost-Fudge Gateau, and Cardamom Crumb Coffee Cake … cardamom. You know how much I love cardamom. I point to my little bit of Swedish ancestry for that one.

Baking Chocolate-Chocolate Chunk Muffins

These muffins delivered on that point. I tend to overfill my muffin tin just to hit those high top notes. In this case, when a recipe only makes a dozen, I kept it to the proper division. But look at that! Perfect muffin tops.

This recipe is tucked inside of the chapter on “Breakfast Sweets.” I don’t typically want a chocolate overload at breakfast, but these muffins aren’t overly sweet. “They are,” as Goldilocks would simper, “Just right.”

After a thorough cooling, these muffins kept supremely well for three days in the same reusable plastic storage container I always use — and then they were gone.

I’d blame it on the kids, but I steadily plowed my way through them. Somehow, it managed to slip my mind to point out the leftover muffins to my kids the next day. Too bad the remainder of the muffins were discovered on day three and devoured before I had the chance to snag one — I was hoping they wouldn’t notice.

Dorie Greenspan’s Recipe for Chocolate Muffins

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Chocolate Muffins for the Morning

Even for a muffin recipe, this is pretty simple. Take care to combine ingredients just until mixed. If you overmix, you won’t have those picture-perfect muffins you want.

Have you made Dorie’s recipes? I’d love to hear about the “keepers.” What other Dorie Greenspan cookbooks are must haves?

Leave a comment below so we can all discover a new-to-us “must make” recipe.

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