Coffee Chocolate Chip Streusel Muffins #bookclubcookbookCC

When you have leftover coffee, why not turn it into some chocolately streusel muffins?!? These muffins are dangerous to have around your kitchen. 🙂

OH MY MUFFIN GOODNESS! These are fantastic. Absolutely fantastic. And I owe them all to a book. Not any old book though, one of my new favorite books–A Tree Grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith. This month for a #BookClubCookBookCC, our hostess was Emily at Life On Food. She asked us to make a recipe inspired by this wonderful classic, and suggested chocolate russe, a cake that the book’s main character, Francie, idealized as a dessert of the rich, only visible to her in the fancy bakery windows, never in her [poor] home where all the dessert she got was stale pie and sugar buns. Well, chocolate russe sounds delicious and all, but I’ve reached a point of lazy cooking and baking these days so muffins it is!

I promise you this–even though these muffins aren’t the recipe for the month, or even something mentioned in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, they are definitely inspired by the book. If you haven’t read this classic, you should. It’s one of those that I never read as a kid or in school, but read as an adult a few summers ago [I actually listened to the audiobook]. The book takes you through Francie’s life, from early chidhood to college. It is truly a coming of age story that captures a poor family in Brooklyn in the pre-war era. It is lovely and full of wonderful character descriptions. Since her family is so poor, food is a large part of their daily existence and coffee is their daily luxury–even the kids! The vivid descriptions of how the kids would be served as much “hot strong coffee” as they liked, with a pre-determined amount of sweetened condensed milk [to stir in or spread on toast] was crazy to me. As a kid, I didn’t like coffee at all! My dad prefers instant [gross] and my sister and I were talking recently about how he used to pay us a quarter to try his coffee. Haha! Unsurprisingly, Francie and her brother Neeley didn’t like the coffee either but still take a cup as their luxury and to be a little more grown-up. So, muffins. Coffee as a nod to Francie and Neeley [my favorite character!] and chocolate chips for the chocolate russe. And because chocolate is yummy. 🙂 If you can’t tell, I ADORE this book and am so glad I got to make a recipe inspired by it!

If you love coffee and chocolate, these muffins are for you! The coffee flavor is mellow but unmistakable. They’re perfect with a glass of cold milk or a cup of coffee… but it’s the streusel that wins the award! Since I made the streusel with melted butter, almonds, and oats, you really have press it onto the batter… but it bakes up nice and crispy creating a fantastic crunchy texture. Yum! I can’t get enough of these muffins. Hope you love ’em too! Thanks for hosting this month, Emily!

P.S. Scroll down for the giveaway, running through the end of the month!

one year ago: Mujaddara: Mediterranean Lentils and Rice with Carrot Slaw
two years ago: Apple Rubies in Coconut Milk
three years ago: Double Blueberry Walnut Muffins
four years ago: Quinoa Pancakes
five years ago: Lemon Blueberry Bread

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