Chocolate Crumble Coffee Cake Muffins
Coffee cake muffins with a Ghirardelli dark chocolate crumble swirled through. The crumble is spiked with orange zest, cinnamon, instant coffee, and pecans. Egg-washed tops bake up golden and glossy.
YIELD
12 servingsPREP
20 minCOOK
17 minREADY
37 minThese are not your average muffins. These are bakery-counter showoffs with a mocha-chocolate crumble marbled through every bite.
The crumble mixture is where the magic lives: Ghirardelli dark chocolate pulsed with brown sugar, fresh orange zest, cinnamon, instant coffee, cold butter, and pecans. It gets knifed through a tender, buttery muffin batter in two quick strokes for a gorgeous marble effect.
An egg wash before baking gives them that professional golden sheen on top. Serve them warm and watch people’s eyes go wide at the first bite when they hit that ribbon of chocolate crumble hiding inside.
Chef Tips
- Don’t overmix the muffin batter. Fifteen to twenty hand strokes is all it takes. Lumpy batter makes tender muffins. Smooth batter makes tough ones.
- Marble with a light hand. Two passes with a knife in each direction. You want visible streaks of crumble, not a homogeneous brown batter.
- Use cold butter for both the crumble and the muffin dough. Cold butter creates those flaky, tender pockets that set a great muffin apart from a cupcake.
- Brush the egg wash on generously. It’s what gives the tops that glossy, bakery-window finish that makes these look as special as they taste.
Ingredients
Directions
DIRECTIONS: Crumble mixture: Place pieces of broken chocolate and brown sugar in food processor or blender.
Process about 15 to 20 seconds or until as fine as coarse ground coffee.
Add orange rind, cinnamon, coffee, butter and pecans.
Process a short time until nuts are finely chopped.
Set aside.
Coffee Cake: Place flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in food processor; process for a few seconds to combine or prepare by hand using a pastry blender.
Sprinkle small butter cubes over dry ingredients.
Process only 5 to 6 seconds to distribute butter into very small pieces, or use pastry blender.
Transfer to a bowl.
Spread mixture to form a well in the center.
Beat whole egg lightly with half and half.
Pour, all at once, into dry ingredients.
Using a folding motion, stir to combine ingredients- mixing only until liquid is all absorbed.
(Do not overmix. This should take only 15 to 20 hand strokes.) Sprinkle the crumble mixture over dough in bowl.
With a table knife, draw across in 2 directions to marble crumble with dough.
(Do not combine thoroughly.)
Heavily grease cups of muffin pans, disposable foil pans, glass custard cups or cupcake liners.
When portioning dough, mixture will be rough but will come together after baking.
To make large size muffins, fill cups level to top, yielding 9 muffins.
For medium muffins, fill cups ⅔ full, yielding 12 muffins.
Prepare egg wash by mixing water with egg yolk.
Brush muffins with egg wash. Bake at 400-F for 15 to 17 minutes, depending upon the size of the muffins.
Muffins should be golden brown and baked in the center.
Cool in pans about 5 minutes to firm muffins before removing.
Serve warm.
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