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
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 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.
Keywords: double chocolate muffins
I tried this recipe with some adjustments and it came out really well.
I changed the flour to a gluten-free flour mix, reduced the amount of chocolate chips to 200g, and added 1 tbsp of wattle seed (a native Australian ingredient).
I would really recommend trying this recipe with the wattle seed if you can find it, as it adds a really nice texture to the muffin. I suspect the gluten-free flour did affect the texture a bit, but they were still really good.
★★★★
What is the nutritional value of these muffins, calories? Thank you.
Hi Eileen, 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
Great recipe! Turned out great! Thank you for also including baking time for mini muffins as I like to make those with the extra batter rather than only use a couple of the spots in a regular muffin tin. Excellent instructions and results AS USUAL Sally!
Just made these with my 8 year old and they were a huge hit!
Perhaps a rookie mistake but is the oven temperature of 425 and 350 for fan or without? We didn’t use fan setting and found they took an extra 10 minutes. Otherwise they were absolutely fantastic!!!
★★★★★
Hi Toni, so glad these were a hit! We always recommend conventional settings for baking (not convection/fan). The flow of air from convection heat can cause baked goods to rise and bake unevenly and it also pulls moisture out of the oven. If you do use convection/fan settings for baking, lower your temperature by 25 degrees F and keep in mind that things may still take less time to bake. And as always, each oven is different and can run hotter or cooler, so bake time can vary for each baker. An oven thermometer can help!
Bananas substitute for the sour cream so well. I use 2-3 very ripe per batch. I also meal plan by making double the recipe and freezing 2/3. These are the only choc. muffin recipe I will ever make!
Hi! I am planning to make these muffins, but was wondering if they would still work without the chocolate chips, or if that would ruin the texture. Thank you!
Hi Anastasia, you can omit the chocolate chips with no other changes to the recipe. Enjoy!
Both my kids have friends over today, and I made these as a treat. Absolutely delicious! Like the Costco chocolate muffins, but better. Not overly sweet.
★★★★★
Great muffins! These were my first attempt at muffins (Costco didn’t have the double chocolate muffins available) and they were a hit. I did reduce the sugar to 3/4 cups, but left everything else as is. Super moist and developed a fudgy top even though I stored it on the countertop in a container lined with paper towels. The fudgy tasting top wasn’t the intent but ended up adding a richness to them.
Made a second time with almond milk rather than whole milk and that was still good!
★★★★★
Do you have the nutritional information for the muffins?
Hi Jeff, 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
Hi! I want to make this recipe and wondered what you think of halving the sugar and adding the same amount of grated coconut?? thank you and I love your recipes!!
Hi Laura, you halve the sugar if you’d like, but the muffins will be quite different as the sugar plays a role in taste, texture, and structure of the muffin. Perhaps start by reducing a very small amount and then adjusting for future batches. Coconut would be a delicious addition! Let us know how it goes.
My granddaughters were visiting and they made these muffins. They were absolutely delicious!
★★★★★
Could I make these as a loaf cake instead?
Hi Tereza, absolutely! Fill your pan half way. We’re unsure of the exact bake time, but it will be longer and you can use a toothpick to test for doneness. If you have any leftover batter, you can make a few muffins on the side.
I made these as muffins at first, but I misplaced the pan at one point so I made them as loaves. I would recommend two pans, I found that with glass pans they took around 42 minutes plus the five, with metal around 45. Hope this helps!
This recipe is now a neighbourhood favourite, and has made me quite the popular baker. Thank you Sally!!
★★★★★
How do you think these would work with shortening (either vegetable or lard) instead of oil? Still too dry? Thanks for the recipe!
Hi Sharon, for best results we recommend sticking with oil. It guarantees a moist muffin!
Can I use Fat Free sour cream or Fat Free greek yogurt? I don’t have full fat of either on hand?
Hi Karren, that will work in a pinch, the muffins may not be a moist and rich though.
I made this recipe gluten free just by switching the flour with bobs red mill 1:1 gluten free flour and still turned out so good!
So good and so easy!! I’ve made this recipe at least 10 times. They are the best!
SO SO yummy! They have the perfect texture and the rich chocolate flavor is amazing! Quick and simple too!
★★★★★
These hit the spot – exactly what I was craving. I didn’t find them too sweet but they’re definitely rich and decadent – which is what I expect from a double chocolate chip muffin. Breakfast muffin this is not.
I didn’t have sour cream so used plain full fat yogurt. I used oat milk and cut the chocolate chips down to 1 cup (I used Guittard 55% chocolate chips). The batter wasn’t as thick or sticky as expected, maybe because of those ingredient swaps.
I made 12 muffins and filled the pan up to the tippy top. I sprinkled a few chocolate chips on top of each muffin before putting them in the oven. Baked as instructed but added an extra 2 minutes because they still were very wobbly in the center.
So so yum. Curious how they would turn out with butter instead of oil because the aftertaste of baked goods made with oil is always a bit of a let down.
★★★★★
Hi Alanah! So glad you enjoyed them. These muffins would taste too dry with butter instead of oil – the cocoa powder is a very drying ingredient, so the butter will dry it out even more. Oil is your best bet for keeping a moist chocolate muffin.
These were so moist! Definitely making them again. I cooked for a few minutes less than recipe calls for
★★★★★
This is one of the easiest and best recipes ever
2 bowls needed a Wisk and a Spoon
They came out just like the photo
I made the mega muffins and couldn’t be happier
Thank you for a great recipe and a delicious muffin
I can see why one commenter says she uses this in her shop – it is bakery perfect that anyone can do and turn out beautiful results
★★★★★
I don’t think you can screw this recipe up. I forgot the oil (don’t know how that happened) and to my surprise they turned out great. Who knew?
★★★★★
These muffins are to delicious bakery-style muffins. An easy recipe too!
★★★★★
I did use buttermilk instead of the sour cream(didn’t have any) & milk. They turned out great.. thank you for the recipe!
★★★★★
I follow the recipe exactly as written except I added a 1/2 teaspoon of King Arthur Baking Clompany espresso powder and sprinkled 3 or 4 more chocolate chips on top each muffin before I slid them in the oven. Delicious! They looked lovely and enticing too. I’m happy to add this recipe to my regular selection of special treats and gift-giving! Thank you!
The texture of the muffins came out great, but they were entirely too sweet. I reduced the sugar to only 175 g, but next time I would reduce the amount of chocolate chips as well. As is they are a great dessert, but not what I was hoping for in a muffin.
★★★
These muffins were absolutely THE WORST!!! I was so disappointed. I spent time and money (with ingredients) to make these things! They looked amazing but tasted bitter and dry. Couldn’t even be salvaged with melted butter. Don’t waste your time with this recipe!
★
Hi Tara, did you leave out the sugar? I can’t imagine how they would taste bitter and dry with these ingredients.
Hi Sally, can I use greek yogurt instead of sour cream?
That substitution would be fine. Enjoy!
I’m so surprised to hear you had such a poor finished product. I make these muffins often for the coffee shop I manage, following the recipe to a T, and they are one of our customers favorites. Something must have accidentally been omitted. Or maybe it was the cocoa powder that was used? I’d definitely like to encourage you to try again because these muffins are amazing!
I loved this recipe so much, and so did my family an friends! Definitely my go-to double chocolate muffin!
Just one note ~ I was a little bit surprised when I saw how much sugar was needed in order to make these muffins; 1 cup white sugar. Personally, I’d say that adding chocolate chips make it sweet enough, so I decided to use 1/2 cup + 1 tablespoon of light brown sugar and coconut sugar. Otherwise, an excellent recipe!
This Recipe is amazing!!!
This is quite literally the best baked good I have ever made. I’m not a baker but these muffins actually blew my mind and I screamed of happiness and scared my cats after eating them knowing I made them. THANK YOU SALLY
Wow! Such a great recipe. I don’t often make muffins, so I was a bit nervous on how they’d turn on out. I made the jumbo sized muffins, and they were delicious. Easy recipe to follow. They were moist and the perfect amount of sweetness. My husband said they were the best double chocolate chip muffins he’s had! Going to try the blueberry muffin recipe next!
★★★★★
Can’t edit og comment…. I used avocado oil
★★★★★