Recipe: Chocolate-Cherry Granola Muffins

Christine Gallary
Christine GallarySenior Recipe Editor at The Kitchn
I grew up in a Chinese food-loving family, eating my first restaurant meals in Oakland's vibrant Chinatown. My love of food but lack of cooking experience led to me Le Cordon Bleu in Paris, where I graduated with a Diplôme de Cuisine in French cooking. After culinary school, I learned how to test and edit recipes in test kitchens at Cook's Illustrated and CHOW, falling in love with the process of rigorously testing recipes to make sure they were foolproof for the home cook. I've worked with thousands of recipes over the past 15 years, including developing recipes for the James Beard-award winning Mister Jiu's in Chinatown cookbook. Living in the delicious diversity of San Francisco, I never get tired of finding new ingredients or cuisines to try. My favorite type is Cantonese home cooking — I'm on a quest to recreate the dishes my grandmother used to make. All the food I test at home is eagerly tasted and enjoyed by my husband, Hayden, and daughter, Sophie, while our little dog, Mochi, looks wistfully on.
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updated Jan 21, 2020
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Credit: Maria Siriano

Makes12

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(Image credit: Maria Siriano)

Let’s talk about the differences between muffins and cupcakes. Cupcakes are treats or desserts, covered with heaps of frosting, but muffins should be just a touch sweet and full of good-for-you things that make an acceptable breakfast. That’s where these muffins — filled with dried cherry and oat-filled granola — come in!

If I’m going to have a muffin for breakfast, I like it to include things I’d eat for breakfast anyway. These muffins are flavored with cocoa powder and dark brown sugar, but also have eggs, yogurt, and milk in the batter.

(Image credit: Maria Siriano)

And since I’m of the opinion that all muffins need fruit, these come with tart-sweet dried cherries and a sprinkling of granola on the top for crunch. It’s a bit like a yogurt parfait in baked good form, but one that freezes extremely well, so I can just throw it in a lunchbox the night before to thaw.

This recipe is quite versatile: Use your favorite granola, although I would recommend one that doesn’t have tiny pieces of dried fruit already in it since they’ll dry out in the oven. Feel free to substitute any kind of dried fruit that you like if dried cherries aren’t in your budget.

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Chocolate-Cherry Granola Muffins

Makes 12

Nutritional Info

Ingredients

  • 1 2/3 cups

    all-purpose flour

  • 1/3 cup

    unsweetened cocoa powder

  • 1 teaspoon

    baking powder

  • 1 teaspoon

    baking soda

  • 1/2 teaspoon

    fine salt

  • 2

    large eggs

  • 3/4 cup

    packed dark brown sugar

  • 1/2 cup

    plain whole-milk Greek yogurt

  • 1/2 cup

    milk (not nonfat)

  • 1/2 cup

    vegetable oil

  • 1 cup

    dried cherries

  • 1 cup

    granola

Instructions

  1. Arrange a rack in the middle and heat the oven to 400°F. Grease or line a 12-cup standard muffin tin with paper liners.

  2. Whisk the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt together in a large bowl. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, yogurt, milk, and oil until no big lumps of brown sugar remain.

  3. Pour the yogurt mixture into the flour mixture and fold together with a rubber spatula until just combined. Fold in the cherries. Divide the batter among the muffin wells. Sprinkle the muffins evenly with the granola, and press the granola into the batter so it is halfway submerged.

  4. Bake until a toothpick or cake tester inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean or with just a few moist crumbs, 15 to 20 minutes. Let the muffins cool 10 minutes before removing from the pan. If you greased the pan, run a thin knife around each muffin to loosen it from the pan first. Serve warm or at room temperature.

Recipe Notes

Fruit substitutions: Raisins, cranberries, or pretty much any other kind of dried fruit will work here — just cut them up into bite-sized pieces first.

Freezing the muffins: These muffins freeze very well; store them in an airtight resealable plastic bag. If packing in lunch boxes, I like to individually wrap them in plastic wrap before freezing so I can just throw one into a lunch box or backpack to thaw.

Filed in:
baked goods
Baking
Bread
Breakfast
children
Chocolate