Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins

Our freezer always contains a stash of homemade muffins– it’s just the way things are. The vast majority are used for my daughter’s daily school snacks, but I admit to sneaking a few to nibble on now and then. I most often go with pumpkin or banana muffins, but this time my daughter asked for oatmeal muffins with cinnamon and chocolate. It sounded like a tasty combination to me, so off I went to the internet in search of a recipe.

I ended up modifying this recipe, adding cinnamon and omitting the pecans. Also halving the baking powder, per the recommendations of many reviewers. The finished muffins turned out quite well, extremely moist and almost reminiscent of a chocolate chip cookie in flavor.

I’ll definitely be making these again– the oatmeal makes them hearty (these are not light, fluffy muffins) and adds some nice texture, and the chocolate chips provide just enough sweetness. I will note, however, that they do require muffin liners– otherwise the chocolate chips make them stick pretty firmly to the pan, as I discovered to my chagrin on my first batch!

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins (adapted from Allrecipes)

Makes 13 muffins

1 1/4 cups quick-cooking oats

1 1/4 cups milk

1 egg

1/2 cup oil

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 1/4 cups flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 tsp. salt

1/2 tsp. cinnamon

1/3 cup mini chocolate chips

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

2. Heat milk in the microwave for 1 minute, until warmed. Stir in oats and let sit for 10 minutes. This will give your oven time to preheat anyway.

3. Stir in egg, oil, and brown sugar.

4. In a separate bowl, stir together flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.

5. Pour wet ingredients over dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Add in chocolate chips.

6. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with paper liners and fill until almost full.  You can try to just grease your pans really well but for some reason these stick more than my usual muffins do, so I recommend liners. You will most likely have a bit of batter left– just enough for one more muffin. You can bake that in a ramekin or ceramic cup.

7. Bake for about 15-18 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean. These do not rise all that much, though they do dome nicely. Turn out onto a rack to cool completely.

Note: If you don’t have quick-cooking oats, you can substitute in rolled oats. However, you’ll definitely want to use hot (not warm) milk and let them sit for 20 minutes instead of 10. Otherwise the milk doesn’t get absorbed and the batter ends up thin and lumpy. It happened to me, and while it bakes up all right (muffins end up a little flat), I prefer a lighter muffin.