CHOCOLATE CHIP STREUSEL MUFFINS

It’s no secret that I love muffins. Most of the time, I like normal sized, fruit-filled muffins, perfectly appropriate for breakfast.

But sometimes… sometimes you want the dessert-for-breakfast muffin. The giant, domed, sugar-topped bakery style muffin. The kind of muffin you eat when you really want to treat yourself.

When you’re in the mood for that kind of muffin, you want chocolate chip streusel muffins.

Here’s the good news: these freeze beautifully. So you can make a whole batch, without the temptation to eat them all at once.

Or you can share them with your friends, which is what I did: both these chocolate chip streusel muffins and the glazed lemon poppy seed muffins I recently shared were made for a group of friends who all came up to Philly for a girls weekend before Brielle was born.

INGREDIENTS:

FOR THE MUFFINS:
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 cup sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
3/4 cup buttermilk, room temperature
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 1/2 cups chocolate chips
FOR THE STREUSEL TOPPING:
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup all-purpose flour
4 tablespoons cold butter, cut into half-inch size pieces
1/2 cup miniature chocolate chips

DIRECTIONS:

Preheat oven to 425 °F. Spray the wells and top of a 12 cup muffin tin with non-stick cooking spray.
In a large bowl, whisk together the vegetable oil, sugar, eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla. Slowly add in the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. Mix until just combined and no dry streaks of flour remain. Fold in the chocolate chips.
Divide the batter between the 12 muffin cups, filling nearly to the top.
To make the streusel, combine the sugar, flour, and butter in a small bowl. Using a pastry blender or fork, cut the butter into the dry ingredients until the streusel has the texture of clumpy, wet sand. Stir in the mini chocolate chips. Sprinkle the streusel evenly over the tops of the 12 muffins.
Bake at 425°F for 5 minutes, then reduce the oven temp to 375°F (do not open the oven in between!) and bake for another 13-15 minutes. Cool muffins in the muffin tin for 10 minutes, then run a sharp knife under the edges of the muffin domes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely.