These Chocolate Chip Muffins have a beautiful golden dome top (we all know muffin tops are the best part!) and are nice and moist inside, not dry and crumbly which is a notorious problem with muffins. No stand mixer required, you just need a wooden spoon and 10 minutes.
This muffin recipe is a great base recipe for sweet muffins. The chocolate chips can be substituted with anything you want. Blueberries, raspberries, nuts, apple – let your imagination run wild!
Muffins are one of those recipes that many people think / say are really easy to make but in actual fact, I think a lot come out quite disappointing. The biggest problem being muffins that are dry and hard. I’ve made muffins in my time that I swear were as hard as baseballs!
Over baking is one culprit for this. But the batter is also a contributor. To avoid dry muffins, some recipes make the batter by creaming butter in a stand mixer. But it’s ingrained in my mind that muffins should be a fast recipe, and creaming butter doesn’t qualify!
The other way is to make the muffins using both baking powder AND baking soda / bi carb (which is baking powder on steroids) for extra lift power, plus buttermilk for moistness and also to activate the baking soda (which requires something with acid like milk + vinegar, yoghurt, sour cream or buttermilk to activate it).
This is my chosen method that I have always used. I know there are many muffin recipes out there that do not use baking soda and/or buttermilk. But they are not as moist and fluffy as these. I have made more than my share in my lifetime in a bid to find the moistest muffin with the least ingredients possible, and concluded that it is not possible to omit these without compromising the muffin!
And the good news? You don’t have to use buttermilk. You can substitute with milk and vinegar, left to curdle. I don’t always recommend that as a substitute, but for this recipe, I can barely tell the difference. Actually, I can’t tell the difference.
I know curdled milk doesn’t look very pretty, but I wanted you to see what it looks like because this is the magic ingredient in this recipe!
My “go to” sweet muffin base recipe used to be a Ina Garten blueberry muffin recipe. It really is a wonderful moist muffin BUT the batter is slightly thinner than this one so the choc chips sink to the bottom (even when I tossed in flour which is a trick that usually works for things like berries, like what I use for my Blueberry Lemon Loaf).
So now this recipe is my base recipe, and it has never failed me. My recipe is slightly adapted from this brilliant Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Muffins recipe by Little Sweet Baker. This recipe is BETTER than Ina Gartens, I’ve tried both!
PS I top the muffins with extra chocolate chips so they are visible when they come out of the oven. This is optional. 🙂
If you don’t use paper patties and spray the muffin tin instead, the tops will spill over and become a bit crispy, just like muffins you get from some bakeries. My personal preference is to use paper patties because clean up is easier and I think it looks prettier, but it is entirely up to you!
Happy weekend! What have you got planned? Maybe baking some MUFFINS??? 😉 – Nagi x
PS These freeze fabulously. Promise. I’ve been eating frozen ones all week!
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Best Chocolate Chip Muffin
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups / 375g plain flour (all purpose flour)
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda / bi carb soda
- 1 cup / 220g white sugar (Note 1)
- 1/4 tsp salt
Wet Ingredients
- 1 cup / 250ml buttermilk (Note 2)
- 1/4 cup / 60g unsalted butter, melted
- 4 tbsp / 80 ml vegetable oil
- 2 large eggs, lightly whisked
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
Chocolate Chips
- 1 3/4 cups / 300g chocolate chips (US: semi-sweet)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 200C/390F (all ovens) (Note 6). Line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper patties.
- Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt in a bowl. Stir through chocolate chips.
- In a separate bowl, whisk buttermilk, melted butter, oil, eggs and vanilla.
- Make a well in the flour bowl, pour in egg mixture. Mix until just combine - try not to stir more than 8 times. Some flour lumps in the batter is fine.
- Divide batter between paper cases. Top with remaining 1/4 cup chocolate chips.
- Bake for 5 minutes, then turn down to 180C/350F (fan forced/convection) and bake for a further 15 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the muffin comes out clean.
- Remove muffins from the muffin tin immediately onto a cooling rack.
- Serve warm or at room temperature (warm is extra yum!)
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Life of Dozer: Getting waaaaaay too close to the muffins…… But I can’t blame him. The smell as these were cooling must’ve been torture for him!!!
Count the muffins: Yes there is 1 missing. Restraint is imposed on Dozer by me. There was no one around to control ME.
Super good! I made a chocolate chip and blueberry same time. Those are amazing! Soft, moist, and delicious!
Hi Nagi, can I please ask you for baking muffins, where you put in the oven? I have a Miele oven with 4 rack holders and I usually put everything on the third so the trays sit in the middle of the oven. But my muffins did come out with a dome.
These are fantastic! I made a double batch, half of them chocolate chip and the other half raspberries. Yummmmmy!
Not sure why but this recipe was a average for me. Came out very tough (how do you only stir 8 times?) and bland. I’d made your blueberry muffins the day before and OMG amazing so surely disappointed by this one. I’m quite an experienced baker (but no expert).
Thankyou Nagi. I am trying to move away from packet cakes/muffins etc and these turned out beautifully. I used choc chips this time, and will try blueberries next. Mine were a bit bigger than yours, but I like how that makes them crispier around the edge.
Woo hoo! I am glad you liked the muffins, Sarelle! N x
Just made a batch for breakfast, following the recipe exactly (using the milk and vinegar sub) and they came out beautifully. Another great Nagi recipe. Light and moist on the inside and a little crispy on the top crust (didn’t use patty cases). Excellent taste and texture. Perfect. I’ve frozen them as treats for the future (thank you, past me).
One question though: I wasn’t clear on whether the 1/4 cup of choc chips to sprinkle on top is part of the 300g of choc chips total…? The recipe says (step 2) to add choc chips to the flour so I added them all; should this say to add choc chips minus the 1/4 cup for the top if desired? I imagine so, as they came out with the perfect, decadent amount of choc chips through the mix — any more would have been overdoing it…? Thanks!
These are delicious!
I took a risk and used natural yoghurt instead of butter milk and they came out as described. Although the took 25mins to cook in my oven.
I will try again with Buttermilk to compare.
Delicious, fluffy and soft, a winner.
This recipe is AMAZING. And super duper versatile! In the past two weeks I’ve changed out the chocolate chips and/or the vanilla essence to make raspberry and white choc chip muffins, orange zest and chocolate muffins, and (today’s bake) apple cinnamon muffins. They’ve turned out perfect every time. Thanks Nagi!!!
i just made this and I usually love your (savoury) recipes, im sorry to say but this recipe is really off.. im not sure why the comments are so positive im guessing maybe because they are using GF flour or some healthier version of it.. these muffins were really disappointing, had no flavour, and the tops all sunk in which is not normal. I followed the recipe to a T. Although i put 1 full cup of sugar they still tasted bland. Also they make way more than they should!! (made 17 muffins not 12)
as a baker for over 35yrs i tried this recipe and agree with lola , they turn out nothing like the picture and if you use the whole amount in 12 cupcakes they will join together as one big try of muffins.
I 100% agree!!!
These always turn out perfect for me but I usually make about 15 muffins. I just tried with 12 and they’re perfect still
Hi Nagi,
Thank you for your lovely recipe. Just wondering if we can sub the vegetable oil for coconut oil?
I haven’t tested that Priya but in theory it should work – it will just change the flavour slightly. N x
I’ve made some terrible muffins over the years and tend to avoid them…until now.
This recipe is amazing and the muffins were perfect. Thank you!
They look so delicious I cannot wait to eat them!
Looks amazing can’t wait to eat them! Yum
Looks amazing can’t wait to eat them!
Looks amazing! Can’t wait to eat them- definitely bookmarking this recipe