Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins

Halloween. Miya the Writer, marching door to door with her notebook and pen and badge, collecting candy and also, apparently, "stories." She asked each person at each door, "Do you have a story?" Most people said something like, "Uh, I once saw a big spider," and Miya wrote it down in her notebook in her wobbling handwriting and said, "Thank you for your story," with the professional courtesy of a journalist on a beat. I followed behind, holding the candy bucket, crying with laughter, because my child is interviewing strangers on Halloween and she is five and she is the funniest person I have ever met.

I made kabocha muffins — the same fusion recipe from two years ago, kabocha and brown sugar and cinnamon with black sesame on top. I brought them to the school for the Halloween party and Jake said, "These are the best muffins," and Miya said, "My mama made them," with the same pride she brings to every introduction of my food, the pride of a child who knows her mother makes good things and wants the world to know it too.

The book revision is in its final stage. The editor is happy. The agent is happy. The publication date is set for September 2031, which feels impossibly far away and also exactly the right amount of time to panic, prepare, and panic again. The book will exist. The book will have pages and a cover and Fumiko's name in the acknowledgments and my name on the spine and the convergence of those two names — the dead and the living, the teacher and the student, the grandmother and the granddaughter — is the whole point of the book and also the whole point of the cooking and also the whole point of the grief that turned into the cooking that turned into the writing that turned into the book. Full circle. Full spiral. Fumiko.

The kabocha muffins are a family recipe now — theirs in their memory, mine in my hands — but I’ve been making these oatmeal chocolate chip muffins on the weeks when I need something a little more crowd-proof, a little more universally beloved by five-year-olds and their classmates who have opinions. The warm spice, the chewy oats, the pockets of melted chocolate: they travel well to school parties, they hold up in a bucket next to a notebook full of Halloween spider stories, and they get the same introduction from Miya that everything I bake gets. My mama made them. That’s the whole review. That’s enough.

Prep Time: 15 minutes | Cook Time: 20 minutes | Total Time: 35 minutes | Servings: 12 muffins

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup old-fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp fine salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
2 large eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk
1/3 cup neutral vegetable oil
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
1 cup semisweet chocolate chips, plus a small handful for topping

Instructions

Preheat and prep. Preheat your oven to 375°F (190°C). Line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners or grease well with butter or nonstick spray.
Mix the dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, oats, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon until evenly combined.
Mix the wet ingredients. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the eggs, buttermilk, vegetable oil, and vanilla extract until smooth and uniform.
Combine. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir gently with a spatula until just combined — a few streaks of flour are fine. Do not overmix or the muffins will be tough.
Fold in the chocolate chips. Add the 1 cup of chocolate chips and fold gently until distributed throughout the batter.
Fill the tin. Divide the batter evenly among the 12 muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Scatter the reserved chocolate chips over the tops of each muffin.
Bake. Bake for 18–22 minutes, until the muffin tops are set and golden and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean or with just a few moist crumbs.
Cool. Let the muffins cool in the tin for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature. Store in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days.

Nutrition (per serving)

Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Muffins — The Ones Miya Told Everyone Her Mama Made