These double chocolate muffins have been our favorite chocolate muffin recipe for over a decade. I love them so much that I published the easy recipe in my 1st cookbook back in 2014! (We now add even more chocolate chips and a touch of vanilla for extra flavor, as you’ll see in the recipe below.) The muffins are incredibly rich, mega chocolate-y, and loaded with chocolate chips in every single bite. Sour cream helps guarantee a soft and moist muffin that has a denser texture than chocolate cupcakes.
Not pointing fingers or anything but chocolate sweet rolls, you’re kind of high maintenance for the morning. (Worth the hype and effort for sure though.) Here’s something easier that satisfies your chocolate craving and doesn’t require a ton of effort, time, or patience. Ha!
Double Chocolate Muffins Details
- Flavor: Chocolate. Seriously, that’s all you really need to know! This chocolate muffin recipe comes together with cocoa powder and chocolate chips. In recent years, I began adding vanilla extract to the batter for a touch of extra flavor. You can certainly leave it out if you’d like (and as mentioned above, the cookbook recipe doesn’t include it).
- Texture: Unlike chocolate cupcakes and chocolate cake, these muffins don’t really have a sponge-like texture. And that’s mostly because we aren’t adding hot water to the batter. They’re more like a bakery-style muffin with a tighter crumb and satisfying bite.
- Ease: Besides the deep chocolate flavor, what you’ll love most about this double chocolate chip muffin recipe is its ease. The recipe uses common baking ingredients, doesn’t require a mixer, and is super straightforward like this pumpkin muffins recipe—2 cups of this, 1 cup of that, and whole eggs. (No separating needed.)
Key Ingredients in Double Chocolate Muffins
The full written recipe is below, but let’s walk through some key ingredients so you understand their importance. This is always helpful when looking for substitution options.
- Cocoa Powder: Use unsweetened natural cocoa powder. You could get away use dutch process cocoa powder, but the muffins may not rise as much. For best taste and texture, stick with natural. Most of the flavor comes from the cocoa powder, so choose a good one! I’ve baked with many over the years and I always go back to Hershey’s.
- Sour Cream: If you were to skip the sour cream and replace it with milk, the chocolate muffins would be thin, flat, and wet. Just like it does in chocolate covered strawberry muffins, sour cream lifts the crumb and keeps the muffins moist. You can replace it with plain yogurt and I often do—in fact, that’s how the recipe is written in the book!
- Oil: We usually use creamed butter and sugar in muffin recipes like blueberry muffins. However, cocoa powder is a very drying ingredient so it’s best paired with oil to keep the muffins moist. If you replace it with melted butter, the muffins will dry out. You won’t miss the flavor of butter because chocolate overpowers it.
By the way, if you enjoy banana + chocolate together, you’ll love these chocolate banana muffins—they’re whole wheat, too!
Expect a thick and sticky batter.
Avoid Overmixing & Use Room Temperature Ingredients
Really all you’re doing here is whisking the dry ingredients together in one bowl and the wet ingredients together in another bowl. The dry ingredients include the sugar and chocolate chips. This way you’re only mixing the ingredients together once—dry + wet instead of dry + wet + mixing in the chocolate chips. Make sense?
- The reason why you’ll mix the chocolate chips into the dry ingredients is to avoid over-mixing the final batter. Over-mixing muffin batter can lead to a tough, dense baked good. While these chocolate muffins are certainly denser than our soft and spongy chocolate cupcakes, they aren’t heavy as bricks.
- What will also help you avoid overmixing is using room temperature ingredients. Bring the eggs, milk, and sour cream to room temperature before starting. As a shortcut, place the eggs in a glass of warm water for 10 minutes and—honestly this is what I do—microwave the sour cream and milk for 10-15 seconds to take the chill off.
Tip: You won’t regret eating one warm out of the oven. Those melty chips!
Double Chocolate Muffins Recipe Video
PrintDouble Chocolate Chip Muffins
- Prep Time: 10 minutes
- Cook Time: 21 minutes
- Total Time: 40 minutes (includes slight cooling)
- Yield: 12-14 muffins
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
These double chocolate muffins are incredibly rich, mega chocolate-y, and loaded with chocolate chips in every single bite. Sour cream helps guarantee a soft and moist muffin that has a denser texture than chocolate cupcakes.
Ingredients
- 2 cups (250g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup (41g) unsweetened natural cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 and 3/4 cups (315g) semi-sweet chocolate chips
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 3/4 cup (185g) full fat sour cream or plain yogurt, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup (120ml) vegetable oil*
- 1/2 cup (120ml) whole milk, at room temperature
- 1 and 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°F (218°C). Spray a 12-count muffin pan with nonstick spray or use cupcake liners. This recipe yields about 14 muffins, so prepare a second muffin pan in the same manner or bake in batches and reserve leftover batter at room temperature for when the first batch is done.
- Whisk the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, and chocolate chips together in a large bowl. Set aside.
- Whisk the eggs, sour cream, oil, milk, and vanilla extract together until combined. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and fold together with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon until completely combined. (Batter is quite thick, so I recommend a spatula or spoon over a whisk.) Avoid overmixing. The batter will be thick and sticky.
- Spoon the batter into liners, filling them all the way to the top. Bake for 5 minutes at 425°F then, keeping the muffins in the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 350°F (177°C). Bake for an additional 15-16 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. The total time these muffins take in the oven is about 20-21 minutes, give or take. (For mini muffins, bake 13-14 total minutes at 350°F (177°C) the whole time.)
- Cool muffins for 10 minutes in the pan, then transfer to a wire rack until ready to eat.
- Cover leftover muffins and store at room temperature for 5 days or in the refrigerator for 1 week.
Notes
- Freezing Instructions: For longer storage, freeze the muffins for up to 3 months. Thaw overnight in the refrigerator, then heat up in the microwave if desired.
- Special Tools (affiliate links): 12-count Muffin Pan | Cupcake Liners | Glass Mixing Bowls | Whisk | Wooden Spoon or Rubber Spatula | Cooling Rack
- Jumbo Muffins: If you’d like to make about 6 jumbo muffins instead of standard size, follow the recipe through step 3 using a greased jumbo 6-count muffin pan. Spoon batter into the liners, filling all the way to the top. Bake for 5 minutes at 425°F then, keeping the muffins in the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 350°F (177°C). Bake for an additional 25-28 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
- Sour Cream: Use full fat sour cream. In a pinch, you can replace it with plain yogurt. (Full fat Greek style or regular yogurt would be best.)
- Oil: For best taste and texture, use vegetable oil. In a pinch, you can replace with canola oil or olive oil. The muffins can taste greasy with melted coconut oil, but if you try it, it’s imperative the other ingredients are room temperature so the coconut oil doesn’t solidify as you mix the batter together.
- Milk: Whole milk is best. 2%, 1%, or nondairy milk work in a pinch. Do not use nonfat milk. Don’t use buttermilk. (You could use buttermilk if replacing both the sour cream AND milk, but the muffins taste a little spongy that way. Best to use sour cream and whole milk.)
- Recipe excerpted from Sally’s Baking Addiction. This version includes more chocolate chips and the addition of vanilla extract for a little extra flavor. The cookbook version also uses plain yogurt, but you can use sour cream as noted here.
Pros
Delicious , soft, moist, not overwhelmingly sweet.
Cons
The rise was avagerage. Didn’t dome as a much as advertised in many many paragraphs preceding the recipe.
It really has a texture of a good cupcake/cake.
Although it is Delicious.. ill be looking for another recipe to get the true muffin texture.
Hi Sally! These muffins were an absolute hit with all my friends. Thank you so much for this recipe! I am wondering if you could help me out with a couple of ideas I have for some friends & family members: I am wondering if I were to add 2-3T espresso powder & replace the milk with Hot coffee for a chocolate “coffee” muffin? Also wondering how to get a really good raspberry flavor into this as I have tried replacing the oil with raspberry puree or coulis & almost 2tsp raspberry extract but still no flavor. Any thoughts?
Hi Kathy! You can certainly add espresso powder to these muffins, but we would keep the milk for texture. For a chocolate raspberry muffin, you could add fresh raspberries as a mix in, or fill the muffins with our raspberry cake filling.
Love this recipe for rich and easy double chocolate chip muffins! I make it all the time. I have a bag of whole wheat flour I’d like to use up. Do you have a recommendation on how I might substitue it for the AP flour in this recipe? Thanks in advance!!
Hi Stacia, You can certainly give it a try, but the muffins will be dense and heavy with the whole wheat flour. We don’t recommend doing any more than 1/2 whole wheat, 1/2 all-purpose.
Another amazing muffin recipe. They turned out perfect! I made my own cafe style cup liners and got 11 healthy sized muffins. I used dark chocolate and probably only 150g since it’s what i had in the cupboard. I also used coconut oil of r the oil component as I like the way it works in cake recipes. I ran these slightly modified ingredients through the Carb Manager nutrition app I use and the total divided by 11 muffins came out at: Total carbs – 43.9g of which 1.7g is fiber, 16.6g is starch, 23.6g is sugar. Protein – 6.3g. Fat – 19.8g of which 15.4g is saturated. Sodium – 206mg.
Dense, gooey, rich. Followed recipe, muffins are excellent. Very chocolatey. I think next time I will add walnuts to break up the chocolate…. but super good!
Very good!! This is my first time making homemade cupcakes and i just happened to have all the ingredients for this recipe! The only thing i did different was substitute almond milk for the whole milk since it was what i had, but it still tasted delicious! Easy to follow recipe for delicious results!
This turned out good. The cupcakes rose and chocolate was so rich.
These were SO GOOD. I don’t ever want to bake another muffin recipe. I only made them because I had sour cream that needed using but I might now have to always have a tub in my fridge for when I want to whip up a batch of these!
These muffins were perfect, moist and oh so good! I followed the instructions to the letter. I used yogurt instead of sour cream, didn’t have enough chocolate chips so I threw in some reeses peanut butter chips. This is definitely a keeper!
These muffins were so easy, they came together so quickly and were absolutely delicious. My family can’t stop eating them! They are definitely a sweet option in terms of muffins, but the chocolate helps balance it out. I made a double batch and all came out well. I gave some to friends and they were a hit! So glad I finally tried this recipe!
Does this recipe call for plain natural yoghurt or Greek yoghurt? Plain yoghurt has a more runny consistency as opposed to Greek yoghurt so would the measurements be different? And what would they be?
You can really use either. Sally typically uses nonfat plain Greek yogurt, but feel free to use full-fat regular (non-Greek) yogurt or whatever you have on hand.
These are amazing… let’s face it’s – it’s more cake than muffin, but it’s wonderful. I am not a fan of having to keep the oven on for 2 muffins over a dozen, so I ended up finding these muffin liners with really tall sides (from hobby lobby)…. It was perfect, held the extra batter and I got 12 large, but not “jumbo” muffins.
Hi Sally Team
These are absolutely lovely,
My mum was very curious as to how these rise without baking powder? 🙂
Thank you and happy new year!
Hi Faadilah, we’re so glad the muffins were a hit! The combination of unsweetened natural cocoa powder and baking soda react to give baked goods optimal rise. If you’re interested, you can read all about it in this post on Dutch process cocoa vs natural cocoa. Hope this helps!
If a. Ertain recipe doesn’t state if the chocolate powder is natural or dutch-processed which should we use
Hi Abegayle, in that case, take a look at the leavener that is used in the recipe. Natural cocoa powder is usually used for batters containing baking soda and dutch-process cocoa powder is usually used for batters containing baking powder.
Thanks for recipe! Can I refrigerate batter overnight and bake later?
Hi Sara, we don’t recommend it. The leaveners are activated once the wet and dry ingredients are mixed together, and it’s best to bake the batter soon thereafter. You can prepare the wet and dry ingredients separately, store, and then mix and bake in the morning. Or simply pop the baked muffins in the microwave for a few seconds to enjoy warm muffins in the morning!
I love your recipes! I’d like to try these with chocolate whey protein powder I bought. 8be heatd whey can dry things out. Any idea how I should alter the recipe? I’ve read adding a banana can help. Thanks!
Hi Valerie, we haven’t tried this recipe using protein powder. Mashed banana could work as a substitution for the sour cream or yogurt. Let us know if you give anything a try!
These taste just like chocolate cupcakes, not muffins. Will try a different recipe.
We love this recipe and make it often! Question, I’m nursing my baby and eggs in any quantity seems to upset her tummy. Is there something I could substitute for the eggs in this recipe and other muffin recipes? Your muffins are a staple in our house and an oft requested breakfast, with 2 toddlers anxious to help and take test. 🙂
Hi Sarah, we’re so glad the muffins were a hit! We haven’t tested them with any egg substitutes, but let us know if you do any experimenting. And if you’re interested, here are all of our naturally egg-free recipes.
Hey there Sarah, I was reading the reviews and saw this posted in November of 2023. Thought I would let you know.
Great recipe! Works well when the eggs are substituted with 1/2 cup applesauce (egg allergy . I’ve also had success omitting the sour cream and adding a 1/4 cup more applesauce for a vegan version or times when I’m out of sour cream.
These are our all-time favorite muffins! They taste like chocolate cake. They are SO GOOD! I made one small change to the recipe: I use milk chocolate chips vs semi. These muffins are a staple in our home! Just try it!!
While these are very good. They had a “bulb” bake up on the top? Why do you think?
My wife won’t let me buy Costco chocolate muffins because of the 700 calories and multiple hard-to-pronounce ingredients. How many calories/muffin in your recipe? Thank you.
Hi Al, We don’t usually include nutrition information as it can vary between different brands of the same ingredients. Plus, many recipes have ingredient substitutions or optional ingredients listed. However, there are many handy online calculators where you can plug in and customize your exact ingredients/brands. Readers have found this one especially helpful: https://www.verywellfit.com/recipe-nutrition-analyzer-4157076
This recipe makes yummy muffins. I use half dark cocoa cocoa powder and half regular (I probably use more of the dark cocoa because it gives it a deeper chocolate flavor) and half milk chocolate, half semi-sweet chocolate chips. My kids love them. We are having these for Christmas morning.
Question- how would you adjust temp and baking time for a mini muffin version? Probably mini chocolate chips and not the full size ones.Thank you in advance!
Hi Angela! See the end of step 4: For mini muffins, bake 13-14 total minutes at 350°F (177°C) the whole time.
Decadent
The texture and flavor were wonderful in these hearty muffins, but WHOA…my family and I found the amount of cocoa powder and chocolate chips VERY intense!! I would reduce cocoa powder to 1/3 cup maximum next time. As for the chocolate chips, I had already cut the amount in half, and that was already plenty, if not still a bit too much. I really appreciated the clear and precise recipe instructions. Interestingly, I purposely overfilled my cups to make 12 instead of 14 muffins, but they baked perfectly in the time specified plus only about 2 minutes.
Hey! The taste was pretty good on these but they came out kinda dry. Any ideas as to why? I followed the recipe
Hi Marwah! Dry muffins can be caused by a couple things: first, is it possible they were over-baked? Make sure to keep on eye on them in the oven, it could take less time than stated as all ovens are different. Second, how did you measure the flour and cocoa powder? Make sure to spoon and level (instead of scooping) to avoid packing in too much into your measuring cups – or use a kitchen scale. You can read more about properly measuring baking ingredients in this post.
My daughters love these cupcakes!!! This year my eldest daughter asked me to bake a gigantic cupcake for her birthday instead of buying a cake. I have a 31cm pan so I believe I should make triple quantity. But how long should I bake it?
Thanks so much for the guidance!
Hi Mina, we’re so glad these are a favorite! We haven’t tested this recipe in a pan of that size, so we’re unsure of the exact bake time and amount of batter needed. Keep a close eye on it and use a toothpick to test for doneness.
This recipe looks great! Would it work as a bread loaf if I reduced the baking temperature (350F?) and increased the baking time (50+ min?)? Thank you!
Hi Abby, You can use this recipe in a 9×5 loaf pan for a double chocolate quick bread. Same temperature, but we’re unsure of the exact bake time. Keep a close eye on it and use a toothpick to test for doneness. Enjoy!
Great recipe! Works well when the eggs are substituted with 1/2 cup applesauce (egg allergy . I’ve also had success omitting the sour cream and adding a 1/4 cup more applesauce for a vegan version or times when I’m out of sour cream.
Can you add expresso powder to this to enhance the chocolate?
Hi Sandy, you can!
Hi Everyone! My husband is dairy free – I tried this recipe with 1/2 cup coconut cream (instead of 3/4 cup sour cream) and 1/2 cup of oat milk which I added 1 Tablespoon of white vinegar too and let it sit for 5 min (to create a dairy free buttermilk) it worked!! Such a delicious and moist muffin recipe. I’m tempted just to double this recipe for my daughters birthday cakes and of course bake longer than the muffins. Thanks I love your recipes!!
Hi Sally, how much buttermilk would you suggest I use since I will not be using yoghurt?
Hi Nisa, you could use buttermilk if replacing both the sour cream/yogurt AND milk, but the muffins taste a little spongy that way. Best to use sour cream (or yogurt) and whole milk.
Thank you for responding. How much buttermilk would that be in mls?
Hi Nisa, 300 mL of buttermilk.
I loved it eventhough I believe I might over baked them a bit, I introduced a long metal probe and after the time given it came out with chocolate several occasions, I realised it came out that way because of the chocolate chips, so don’t be alarm if after the time the probe is hot totally clean not to worry, probably is already cooked.