Mastering the Muffin Method

My article on the muffin method appears today on kosher.com, featuring my cousin Laurie's yummy pumpkin chocolate chip loaf recipe. It's great and makes very reliable and delicious cake, every time.

It is a good cake to bring to friends or relatives too because you can make a few at a time, a few days in advance. As long as it's covered with plastic wrap all around, it will stay fresh for at least four days, and it can also be frozen if it's wrapped properly. It's a great idea for a treat to bring to a friend who has had a baby.

You can use any kind of fruit puree really, not necessarily pumpkin. I already tried the recipe with applesauce, and it works well if you add a splash of vanilla.

You can also replace the pumpkin seasonally with other items like mashed banana and frozen thawed blueberries or raspberries. Just make sure to add some vanilla and skip some or all of the chocolate chips.

You can read the full article here.

Laurie's recipe is below:

3 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
4 tsp cinnamon
4 large eggs, beaten
2 cups sugar
1 ½ cups oil
2 cups pumpkin
2 cups (12 oz) semisweet chocolate chips


Preheat oven to 350ºF. Sift dry ingredients together. Beat eggs, sugar and oil until light in color. Add, alternately, dry ingredients and pumpkin, mixing between each addition. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour until half full into large, ungreased tube pan (or 9 x 13 pan). Bake for 1 hour and 10 minutes, until dry in center. This cake also may be baked in muffin tins, two 8”x 8” pans, or two large loaf pans or three small ones. The baking time will be shorter if you use smaller pans or muffin tins, so keep an eye on them. Recipe can be easily halved or doubled.