Oatmeal Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins — The Graduation-Week Bake

Graduation week. Final exams Monday and Tuesday morning. Senior breakfast in Mr. Briggs’s classroom Wednesday morning at seven AM. Senior awards assembly Thursday afternoon. Graduation rehearsal at the auditorium Friday at three PM. Graduation ceremony Saturday at four PM. The week has a rhythm I haven’t felt before in my life. Everything I’m doing all week is the last time of something. The last time I’ll sit in second-period AP Government. The last time I’ll walk down the third-floor English corridor. The last time I’ll eat the cafeteria’s rectangular pizza. The last time I’ll sit at the table in the library where Iris and I had spent forty-two consecutive Wednesdays after the writing program ended last August. I have been quietly cataloguing the last times all week without telling anybody, including myself.

I baked oatmeal pumpkin chocolate chip muffins Wednesday night for the senior breakfast Thursday morning — sixty muffins for Mr. Briggs’s AP English breakfast that he hosts every year for his outgoing seniors before the awards assembly, in his classroom, with a folding table covered in a blue tablecloth and a coffee urn from the teacher’s lounge. He’s done this since 1996. The other senior English teachers do something similar but Mr. Briggs’s breakfast has the longest unbroken tradition.

The muffins are the dessert version of breakfast: rolled oats and pumpkin pureé and dark brown sugar and warm spices (cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, allspice, a clove of clove) and a generous handful of semi-sweet dark chocolate chips folded into the batter. The pumpkin pureé (one full fifteen-ounce can) keeps the muffins tender for four full days at room temperature on the counter under a clean kitchen towel, which is critical for a muffin that’s being baked Wednesday night for a Thursday morning event — you don’t want a muffin that’s already drying out by serving time. The chocolate chips make the muffins feel like a small gift instead of just a breakfast pastry. The oats give the texture body so they read as substantial enough for a high-school senior’s actual breakfast and not just a snack.

The recipe: dry ingredients are two cups of all-purpose flour, a cup and a half of old-fashioned rolled oats, a cup of dark brown sugar packed, two teaspoons of baking powder, a teaspoon of baking soda, a teaspoon of salt, two teaspoons of cinnamon, a teaspoon of ginger, a half-teaspoon of nutmeg, a quarter-teaspoon of allspice, a pinch of cloves. Whisk dry ingredients in a large bowl. Wet ingredients in a separate bowl: one fifteen-ounce can of pumpkin pureé (not pumpkin pie filling, ever), two large eggs, a half-cup of vegetable oil, a half-cup of buttermilk, two teaspoons of vanilla extract. Whisk wet, fold into dry until just combined — lumpy is fine, lumpy is the goal, smooth batter makes tough muffins — then fold in a cup and a half of semi-sweet chocolate chips at the end.

Scoop into greased or paper-lined muffin tins, mounded slightly above the top of the cup so the muffin domes properly during the bake (a flat scoop makes a flat muffin; a domed scoop makes the bakery muffin). I sprinkled coarse turbinado sugar on top of each muffin before baking for the crunchy sparkly top that signals professional. Twenty-two minutes at three-seventy-five until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool in the tin five minutes, then onto a wire rack to cool completely.

Sixty muffins, five batches in our two muffin tins. Wednesday night I was up until almost midnight finishing them. Mama brought me coffee at eleven and didn’t tell me to go to bed because she understood. Cody helped pack them into the bakery boxes Aunt Linda had brought down two weeks ago.

Mr. Briggs handed me a folded letter at the breakfast Thursday morning in front of the other twelve seniors at the table. He didn’t say what it was. He just slid it across the desk with one finger and said, “Read this when you’re alone.” I opened it later in my truck in the parking lot before fifth period. It was a recommendation letter he’d written and already sent to the director of the Tulsa Community College honors writing program suggesting I be considered for the freshman creative-writing seminar that bypasses the regular intro composition track and lands incoming freshmen directly in the workshop sequence. He’d cc’d the director when he sent it Monday. The letter is the kindest thing anyone has ever written about me. I read it three times sitting in the truck and then I folded it back into the envelope and put it in the AP English binder where I keep the things I’m trying not to lose. I’m taking the letter to TCC in a sealed envelope. I will hand it to my freshman advisor in person on day one of fall semester.

Pumpkin pureé not pie filling. Lumpy batter. Turbinado on top. Here’s the muffin.

Oatmeal To Go Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 22 minutes | Total Time: 32 minutes | Servings: 12 muffins

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cups old-fashioned rolled oats
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 cup milk
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat & prep. Preheat your oven to 375°F. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners or spray generously with nonstick cooking spray.
2. Mix dry ingredients. In a large bowl, whisk together the oats, flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt until evenly combined.
3. Mix wet ingredients. In a separate medium bowl, whisk together the pumpkin puree, eggs, milk, vegetable oil, and vanilla extract until smooth.
4. Combine. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir gently until just combined — do not overmix. A few streaks of flour are fine; they’ll bake out.
5. Fold in chocolate chips. Reserve a small handful of chocolate chips, then fold the rest into the batter. Divide the batter evenly among the 12 muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full. Scatter the reserved chips over the tops.
6. Bake. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean. The tops should be set and lightly golden at the edges.
7. Cool. Let 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 for up to 3 days.

Nutrition (per serving)

Calories: 210 | Protein: 4g | Fat: 8g | Carbs: 31g | Fiber: 2g | Sodium: 155mg