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!
One reader, Teck, commented: “It’s truly a superb recipe. Moist and full of flavor. Easy to follow. Voted the best muffin by my family. ★★★★★”
Another reader, Paulina, commented: “They turned out just perfect and looked so good, you’d think I bought them. This will definitely be my go-to chocolate muffin recipe from now on! ★★★★★”
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
Double 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 silicone 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 Silicone 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.
Reader Comments and Reviews
Can I use butter in the recipe instead of vegetable oil? Will that make it too dry or change the consistency?
Hi Anessa, it’s best to stick to oil for this recipe. Butter will yield dry-tasting muffins.
First time making choc chip muffins. What a great success. Sally sure makes it easy. The grand kids just loved them.
Amazing, simple and beautiful muffins. My question is, can I reduce the amount of sugar without compromising the quality of the muffin?
Hi Leah! Sugar is used for moisture and texture in baked goods as well as taste. You can certainly try reducing the sugar, but the resulting texture will be different than intended.
I had to cook an extra 5 minutes. Mine was super dense. I don’t think I overmixed as I was trying to get all the dry ingredients mixed in.
Forgot to add sugar to the batter because I overlooked it but it still turned out delicious – sugar-free!
Can you replace sugar by a natural sweetener such as honey or maple syrup or ripe bananas?
Hi Katerina, we don’t recommend that in this recipe. For a healthier option, you could try these banana chocolate muffins instead.
Hi Sally. Ive used your master jumbo muffin recipe repeatedly with delicious results every single time. Im wondering if I could add chopped fresh cherries to this chocolate muffin recipe without altering the structure of the muffin itself too much. Thoughts?
Hi Jennifer, you could definitely add chopped fresh cherries to this batter! Let us know if you try it!
my muffins came out kinda rubbery and a bit under cooked, I followed the recipe except I used olive oil and plain greek yoghurt instead of vegetable oil and sour cream cream idk if that affects anything because it said I can use it if I don’t have those, I cooked the muffins an extra 5 minuets but it was still undercooked. the muffins tasted good tho I just want some tips on how I can not get it rubbery and undercooked (I love you’re recipes)
Hi Nour, could the batter have been over-mixed? That would lead to rubbery muffins. Did you use a toothpick to test for doneness?
Had this exact same issue. I also used plain full fat yogurt, was careful to not over mix, but they turned out rubbery and didn’t rise very well. Kids will still gobble them up no doubt but definitely not my finest muffin ever
I was looking for a copycat recipe for Costco Double Chocolate Veggie muffins my daughter requested. Two I found online didn’t even use veggies, haha. I came to Sallys’ site as I have used many of her great recipes before. The Double Chocolate Chip Muffins recipe worked well as a start and I made these changes, mix and bake as directed.
3/4 cup white sugar (lowered by 1/4 cup)
1/2 cup plain yogurt (lowered by 1/4 cup)
1/4 cup whole milk (lowered by 1/4 cup)
1/2 coconut oil (room temperature)
added: 1 cup grated zucchini (sprinkle with the 1/2 tsp salt, let set 15 minutes, squeeze out moisture)
Used dark choclate chips. Made 18 muffins. Success!
These are fantastic! I used self rising flour and two percent milk and they were still incredible. We will definitely be making these again.
Made this for my kids and they loved it! Great basic chocolate muffin recipe.
This is my go-to chocolate muffin recipe!! I’ve made it so many times and always get so many complements!
these are amazing! did not sub anything else but i only had almond milk on hand, they were still SO DELICIOUS! the best
How about using this recipe to make mini muffins? Any suggestions?
Hi Marcia, for mini muffins, bake 13-14 total minutes at 350°F (177°C) the whole time. Hope they’re a hit!
This works perfectly! I make these muffins with my kids in (both sizes) weekly because they love them so much! They actually have this recipe memorized now. LOL! Thank you so much!!!
I used what I had on hand. Subbed oat milk for whole milk, light greek yoghurt for sour cream and only had 170g of choc chips. They turned out lovely and fluffy and delicious. The batter was a little runnier probably because of the yoghurt but that did not stop the muffins from puffing up nice and tall.
To make this batter into loaves… would it make one loaf or two?
Hi Alisha, you could bake this batter in 1 9×5 inch loaf pan.
Great cupcake recipe! Simple and delicious. Fun for the kids too! Thanks for your efforts!
So bad news queen… we went thru all the trouble of turning down the heat and setting timers just for them to be completely uncooked….. also my friend inhaled cocoa because the recipe calls for a diabolical amount… otherwise
It’s an appropriate amount of cocoa. If it’s undercooked, you just cook it longer. Everyone’s oven is different. That’s Baking 101.
Uh you check your muffins with a thermometer so that you know it’s done. Sounds like an oven issue on your end. Have made this recipe a dozen times and it’s perfect. Also your friend not being able to manage cocoa is a you issue not a recipe issue.
Absolutely delicious just the way they are written! Great texture and lots of chocolate flavor. Keeping this recipe for sure!
Hi it’s me again! I’ve been making banana bread & muffins for over 30 years now and have added several other sweet & savory options to my recipe…would i add my bananas to your recipe or the cocoa & chocolate to my recipe? TIA
Hi Carrie, we love this chocolate banana muffins and this chocolate banana bread!
I don’t have semi sweet morsels but milk chocolate…will that be okay to use? Also instead of whole milk can I use heavy cream?
Hi Carrie, you can use milk chocolate morsels for a sweeter muffin. Heavy cream will be too thick for this batter, but you could tty cutting it with some water. Let us know if you try!
Thank you so much! You may receive another comment/question from me because I lost where my original one went. I will be trying these this evening with my daughter who is my ride or die sous chef!
Thank you so much for this amazing recipe, it was everything I wanted in a chocolate muffin. I used 72% cocoa chips and subbed out butter instead of oil. Baking at 425 for 5 minutes and reducing the heat made them a bit crunchy on the outside and so yummy moist and chocolately on the inside.
I loved this recipe, but felt the chocolate was a bit tasteless in the muffin, and next time am going to try adding some coffee or espresso to give the chocolate a bit more depth.
Tried them today because i was craving Starbucks’ muffins, and guess what! These are way wy better! Its like its my first time ever to try muffins! Perfect recipe
Made these Double Chocolate Chip muffins with out the chocolate chips and in mini muffin size. They turned out perfect!
Hello! I love this recipe. Absolutely delicious and a hit with the family. I love making them in the mini muffin tins.
I’m meal prepping for postpartum right now and was thinking of making a muffin mix (just the dry ingredients) so I can prepare fresh muffins a bit easier later on. Do you think there would be any issues with doing it that way? Should I leave any of the dry ingredients separate?
Thanks!
Hi Lexus, that should be fine! The only issue we can think of is making sure the baking soda is fresh. We’d recommend opening a new package when you’re mixing up the dry ingredients, and labeling your muffin mix with a use-by date 3 months from now. Hope this helps!
Good afternoon happy hump day! . I just made your double chocolate muffins. They came out good but a little dry. How do I fix this? Less cooking time or add a little more vegetable oil?
Thank you.
Sincerely Robert Jimenez
Hi Robert! Dry muffins are often caused by over-baking, yes. Make sure to keep an eye on them as they bake in the oven because all ovens bake a little differently.
Kinda hard to get the ‘doneness’ right when your toothpicks stab through the chocolate chips leaving a wet surface – mine are cooling now – fear they could be overdone and dry – would frosting help?
Hi Susan, the chocolate chips will leave a thicker melted chocolate texture where underbaked batter will leave a texture more like moist/wet crumbs. You can certainly add some frosting if you wish. This chocolate buttercream would be delicious.
What about substituting chocolate pudding instead of sour cream or yogurt?
Hi Drew, we recommend sticking with sour cream or yogurt for best results, but let us know if you try chocolate pudding!
Hi, what can I do if I don’t have eggs, milk, or usual substitutes?
Would water and powdered coconut milk, plus more greek yogurt work?
Made these for a Monday breakfast. I added some toasted, chopped walnuts. They were delicious. Made Monday a whole lot better. Better than brownies.
Alright, this is getting out of hand. I’ve tried three muffin recipes from this website in one week, and all of them turned out absolutely addictive. This is the third one. I had no chocolate chips, so I skipped them, and guess what, the muffins turned out amazing. I’m considering adding walnuts instead of chocolate chips next time. Thanks again for the recipe. Never underestimate the power of sour cream.