Whole Grain Peanut Butter Muffins

The night before an earlier than usual meeting at work last week, I decided that I just had to bake muffins for my coworkers. I'd seen a recipe for Peanut Butter muffins in my King Arthur Flour Whole Grain Baking book that looked intriguing, so I decided to give that a go. I skipped the optional glaze but added in the chocolate chips because that seemed like the right thing to do and I might be deeming these, officially, my favorite muffins ever. They have a slightly cornmeal-ish texture, which is lovely, they are sweet enough, but not overly so, and the peanut butter helps them get slightly crunchy/chewy on the outside, which is heavenly.

(Unfortunately, as I was too distracted by the taste of the muffins, I neglected to take a photo. So above is a photo of a slightly different version of this type of muffin from Annie Eats, which is based on a recipe from Baking Bites. Mine pretty much looked like this, though they were more golden as mine have whole wheat pastry flour in them.)

I highly recommend that you make these, and soon. I might try them with raisins or even a bit of banana the next time I make them, though the version I made might be hard to top.

Peanut Butter Muffins
2 1/4 c whole wheat pastry flour
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
4 tbsp unsalted butter at room temp
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
3/4 cup peanut butter, creamy or crunchy, at room temp
1 1/2 tsp vanilla
2 large eggs
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 cup chocolate chips, optional (or not!)

1. Preheat the oven to 375F. Lightly grease a muffin tin or line with papers and coat the papers with nonstick spray.
2. Whisk together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl.
3. Cream together the butter and the brown sugar in a large mixing bowl until light. Add the peanut butter, mixing until incorporate. Beat in the vanilla and the eggs, one at a time, scraping down the sides and bottom of the bowl to make sure everything is evenly mixed.
4. Add one third of the dry ingredients and mix. Add half of the buttermilk, mix until combined, then add the remaining dry ingredients and the rest of the buttermilk. Scrape the bowl again. When everything is mixed evenly, stir in the chocolate chips.
5. Scoop the batter into the prepared pan. Bake until golden brown and a cake tester inserted into the middle comes out clean, 23-25 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then turn them out onto a rack to finish cooling. (That last step is key—letting them cool entirely in the pan means that they will continue to steam, which will result in rubbery muffins.)