I grew up in a small town. We had a Dairy Queen, a McDonald’s, and a Hartz Chicken. And a restaurant called the Hot Biscuit. We also had a single small grocery store. If they didn’t have it, you didn’t need it. And if you did, you were out of luck.

That small town is still small but there are at least two places to buy groceries and several other options nearby. And I think that the Hot Biscuit might still be open 🙂

Our grocery store today is a far cry from that single small store. There’s a large prepared food counter for quick-fix dinners, a beer case full of “fancy” beer, a full-service bakery, a live cooking grill, a sushi bar, and my absolute favorite: a counter where you can get fresh, made-right-in-front-of-your-face tortillas. It’ll sure spoil a person, real quick!

That bakery also cranks out a White Chocolate-Mango Muffin that’s pretty much heaven in a cupcake liner. It’s a little heavy on the almond extract but it’s chock-full of fresh mango and white chocolate chunks. And it’s got one of those pretty, sky-high “I came from a real bakery” muffin tops. Once a week, the toddler and I split one while we’re shopping. It’s well worth the money but the “I can do this myself for less” in me knows that I can buy 2 mangos for the price of one muffin. And I can make a dozen muffins at home to have for breakfast all week.

To recreate the muffins, we used our favorite muffin base which is a stripped-down blueberry muffin recipe from Cook’s Illustrated. It’s produces a reliably moist muffin and the batter is really thick so it doesn’t spread and leave you with a flat top. We loaded it with a full cup each of diced mango and white chocolate chips – and were a little lighter-handed with the almond extract. To get a big, puffy muffin top like a commercial bakery, we paired our favorite recipe with a higher-than-usual temperature for the first half-ish of the baking time. The end result is a pretty muffin with a big, dramatic dome that looks just like it came from the bakery down the street.

Only you don’t have to shell out $1.50 per muffin. And you don’t have to put on pants to get one.

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White Chocolate-Mango Muffins

Moist, domed bakery-like muffins studded with fresh mango and white chocolate.

Ingredients

• 3 cups + 1 Tbsp all-purpose flour
• 1 Tbsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 10 Tbsp unsalted butter, cubed and softened
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 tsp almond extract
• 1 1/2 cup plain fat-free Greek yogurt
• 1 cup diced mango
• 1 cup white chocolate chunks/chips
• Coarse sugar, for sprinkling tops (optional)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400
2. Mix 3 cups flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt in medium bowl; set aside.
3. Cream butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light and fluffy, about 3 minutes.
4. Add eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition followed by the vanilla and almond extract.
5. Beat in half of dry ingredients, followed by a third of the yogurt.
6. Add remaining dry ingredients in two batches, alternating with the yogurt, until incorporated.
7. Toss mango and white chocolate with the remaining 1 Tbsp flour and add to the mixer, mixing for just a few more seconds to distribute evenly (the batter will be very, very thick).
8. Spray a muffin tin with non-stick spray or line with paper liners. And if you find that you're 3 paper liners short, you can improvise with some parchment paper cut in ~5-6 inch squares. But it's a total pain.
9. Divide the batter evenly among cups, using a large cookie scoop (my scoop is ~2.25 inches across).
10. Sprinkle top lightly with coarse sugar, if using.
11. Bake for 8 minutes and then decrease oven temperature to 375 and bake for ~12 more minutes until golden brown and a skewer inserted in the center comes out clean.
12. Let cool 5 minutes in the pan before removing and cooling completely.
13. Will keep ~4 days in a covered cake plate, can be frozen.

Notes

Yields: ~15 muffins

Inspired by HEB

Estimated time: 45 minutes