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.
You’ve done it again! Soft, fluffy and moist!
Hi Nagi, can this recipe be halved and made as mini muffins/cupcakes using mini cases and of course adjusting baking time?
Yes 100% Julie!!! Enjoy! N x
I tried the recipe a month ago and found it amazing. I did it again today but added some cocoa powder (30g): best double chocolate chip muffin ever!!!
Lovely, soft muffins. Next time I’ll try blueberry instead of choc chips.kids loved them too. Did have a very slight baking soda taste, I wonder if I could use more baking powder and less soda?
I used a almond/cashew milk with np apparent issues. Easy, quick and yummy!
That’s great to know Sam, thanks so much for commenting! N x
Even my nephew who prefers cookies to muffins devoured 2 of these amazing chocolate chip muffins in one go!
Hi Nagi the Best, I made these muffins countless times last few yrs, delicious and moist. I wonder if I can add 1/4 of coca powder into the dry ingredients, would it be still moist?
Hi Ai, changing the dry ingredients changes the texture of the muffins – try these chocolate cupcakes https://www.recipetineats.com/best-easy-chocolate-cupcakes/ 🙂 N x
Hi Nagi, these muffins are the best I have made! Only problem I found is that 180C on fan assisted oven burnt the extra chocolate chips on top. I guess I will turn down to 160C fan next time, unless you have another suggestion? They were still very, very delicious though! Also, I only had old bicarb in the cupboard which gave a best before date of April 2019 (I can’t find any to buy anywhere). It still seemed to work well. Do you think it is OK to use this going forward? Thanks x
Hi, I simply love your muffins, soft and rise amazingly! please guide me what happens if I add some mashed banana to these muffins. I love to add a fruit to my cakes and muffins.
Hi Claire, they would be more dense – it would be something I’d need to test to give you advice here – N x
Thanks, would be a good mixture.. banana and chocolate chip muffins 🙂
Take care
I made this, and the texture & rise was AMAZING. Unfortunately I didn’t have buttermilk, and created a milk+vinegar substitute and put in WAAAAY too much vinegar, sth like 1.5TBSP! (my fault cos I didn’t read the instructions carefully). So it tasted awful 🙁 I was very sad, but am determined to try again because the texture was exactly what I envision for muffins. Now I just need to get the taste right!
Oh no!!! I hope you give it another go! N x
By far the BEST choc chip muffin recipe I’ve ever made (and I’ve made a few!!). Have never used buttermilk in a choc chip recipe before. Nagi, superb! I used the standard 12 muffin tin and used muffin cases – they were a big size and didn’t spill over the edge of the cases. Nice big mound of goodness.
Perfect Leah!!! N x
Hi Nagi! This recipe looks amazing…with all the coronavirus happenings I can’t get my hands on baking soda, but strangely enough a lot of self raising flour. Would you recommend using the same amount of self raising flour or adjusting it slightly? Thanks heaps!
Hi Carly, you can use self raising flour in place of the plain flour and bi-carb/baking powder – N x
Big big hit! Tried this recipe for the first time today and it’s just so yums!
I used self raising flour and whole milk instead, still they taste just awesome 🙂