Fabulous Chocolate Chip Muffins for Roni

I try to be a good grandma (aka Savta) and while I’m sure I fall short at times, at other times I know I’ve done good.

DH decided over 3 years ago to visit (with me, of course) each and every family, every week, to learn together with the kids starting with the eldest (bar mitzva boys) and slowly acquiring adherents as time went on (nothing like watching the little ones climb on him like puppies to “learn with Saba”).

I was very flattered when my granddaughter Roni asked me if I’d start learning Mishnayot with her. Till then, I’d done English homework with them, read books to them, hung out and shmoozed (or just listened) and it’s been more and more rewarding with the passing of time.

Roni’s brother Noam just had his Bar Mitzva and I know you can feel a bit left out so I decided to surprise her with some special baked goods for her birthday which follows closely on the heels of his birthday.

This is all fine and dandy, but I’m 60 now and can F O R G E T stuff, ya know? So I was checking email, playing online Scrabble with my mom and doing all sorts of stuff and suddenly realized OMG we have to leave in 1/2 an hour and NO MUFFINS oyoyoy.

So, since I’ve made these innumerable times, I decided to race against the clock since I badly wanted to surprise her. First thing first, preheat the oven to 425 degrees. I give a huge shoutout to Sally’s Baking Addiction for this, I’ve made hundreds of muffins in my day, but although her recipe is similar to many others, and I did use her recipe for this, it is her technique of heating the oven to 425 and baking the muffins for 5 minutes on this heat and lowering to 375 for the rest of the baking time which is brilliant and gives you a perfect high domed, bakery style looking muffin that has perfect fluffy and tender crumb texture.

I didn’t have all my ingredients lined up (which I usually do) but in a frenzy, grabbed a bowl, whisked the dry ingredients together and practically flung the wet in a separate bowl, stuffed muffin papers into the muffin tin and bam, there you go within 5 minutes had mixed them up, scooped them into the paper cups in the tin and bunged them into the oven. I confess, I panted a bit but hooray! did it. Then I just watched the timer like a hawk, lowered the temp and with one eye on the clock, 18 minutes in toto later they were gorgeous and risen beautifully. I let them cool on a rack for 5 minutes and plunked them in a towel lined tin and raced through the rain to DH who didn’t even have to wait for me in the car.

Lemme tell you, I won the Grandma awards that night. She was surprised and thrilled and they fell like wolves on the muffins (including her parents 🙂 ) and I cleverly saved 3 muffins at home for DH (recipe easily makes 15 normal sized muffins). Whew, thank you G-d for quick breads!

Fabulous Chocolate Chip Muffins for Roni

I made these non-dairy for Roni, since I wasn’t sure what they’d had for dinner.

3 cups (375 grams) flour

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 cup white sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon of salt

2 eggs

1 cup milk,  or  buttermilk or soy milk to which I add a teaspoon of vinegar to approximate buttermilk

1/2 cup vegetable oil (I like canola)

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. This is not a mistake, you will bake the muffins for 5 minutes on this temperature to get the domed shape and immediately lower the temp to 375 without opening the oven. Do not worry, they won’t burn if you keep an eye on the timing and lower the temp after the five minutes- don’t walk away during this period.

Grab a bowl and whisk together the flour, baking powder, sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg and salt. (You can skip these spices but they add an unexpected wallop of flavor. Try it, you’ll like it!) Take a separate bowl and whisk the eggs, milk or reasonable facsimile thereof, oil and vanilla together. Whisk the wet ingredients into the dry ingredient just till incorporated do NOT overmix. That will take your tender muffin and turn it tough.

Take a muffin pan and either oil spray very well or line with muffin papers. Since I was taking them out to someone else, I used the papers, less likely to crumble enroute.

Use an ice scream scooper with the mechanism to release (Oxo brand is great) and evenly scoop out the same amount per muffin cup. If using a 12 cup tin, you should have enough for 3 more muffins and I use the heavy cardboard muffin cups that stand on their own to bake alongside the tin.

Bake at 425 degrees for 5 minutes and without peeking, lower the temp to 375 and bake for 13-14 more minutes. Check with toothpick, should come out with a few crumbs clinging to it. Let cool on wire rack. These freeze beautifully. If I want to freeze them, I wait till the muffins are cool, and store them in ziploc bags with the air removed as much as possible and put in the freezer. Then you can pop them one day at a time into microwave or let them defrost on their own if need be.

Sally’s original version:

https://sallysbakingaddiction.com/bakery-style-chocolate-chip-muffins/