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 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.
This is the absolute best chocolate muffin recipe I’ve ever had! It’s almost like a cross between a cupcake and a muffin because it did not come out super dry but had the wonderful rise! So delicious and definitely added to my list of regular bakes!
In case this helps any vegans out there: I attempted to veganize this recipe by substituting the 2 eggs with 2 flax “eggs” (2 Tbsp ground flax + 5 Tbsp water, mixed into a slurry and allowed to sit for a few minutes to gel up), using dairy-free chocolate chips (TJs carries them for cheap!), vanilla unsweetened almond milk instead of milk, and substituting the sour cream with an equivalent weight of Tofutti vegan “sour cream” (in retrospect, I bet vegan yogurt would also have been good…cashew/almond/oat yogurt maybe?).
The muffins are quite rich/dense, but delicious and look just like the photos! I did increase the baking soda a tiny bit (maybe 1/8-1/4 tsp) just for leavening, and they definitely got nice tall muffin tops. (other notes: I added a pinch of instant coffee powder to the dry ingredients, used Hershey’s Special Dark cocoa powder, and added a little sprinkle of sea salt on top after baking).
Ohhhhhh, myyyyyyy! These are decadent and delicious! I used silicon cupcake molds and placed them on a baking sheet. This made 17 and, since they’re not grocery-store HUGE, I don’t feel horrible (guilty) eating one! Some of my tops were a bit wonky. Some were perfect muffin tops. Others were flat! Some were flat and slanted. 🙂 Honestly, I think it’s because I used the convection oven. Next time I’ll try the ‘regular’ oven and see what happens with the tops.
These are AMAZING! Like, the recipe is written so well, steps are easy, results are spectacular. I made them today in jumbo liners and they were perfect. Wish I could add a picture. Thanks for the great recipe!
I followed these directions exactly and the muffins are dry and husband says needs more sugar…..DISAPPOINTING and waste of ingredients!
I, going into 7th grade, made these cupcakes with my sisters, going into 1st grade, and they were delicious! The only thing we change was we accidentally mixed all of the wet ingredients directly into the dry without mixing the wet ingredients together, but they were still amazing!! Will make again soon!
Amazing taste and texture for all you chocoholics.
these muffins are heavenly. perfect for chocolate lovers like me 🙂
thank you for the recipe, sally!
This recipe looks so good. I want to try it. But I need to make it dairy free. I can replace the milk with soy milk, but what about the sour cream? What would you suggest that I use as a dairy free option to replace the sour cream? Thanks!
If i dont eant yo ise chocolate all the time what measurements for bluberry rasberry?
Hi Victoria, for other muffin flavors and combination, we recommend following our master muffin recipe instead! Or, you can follow our blueberry muffin or raspberry muffin recipes, too.
Incredibly delicious! These are so delicious I could not wait 10 minutes to eat one. So moist and chocolatey. Very easy recipe to follow. This will definitely be a hit on Mother’s Day along with your strawberry cheesecake muffins. Have a wonderful Mother’s Day. Sandy
I just made these using low fat sour cream (3%MF), 1% milk (as that’s all we keep at home) and I halved the sugar (so 1/2 cup total). They are AMAZING!! I don’t miss the cut down sugar since the chocolate chips make up for any lost sweetness. Thank you for this recipe!
Great muffin Sally… the best I’ve made from your site! It can fool anyone that it came from a professional bakery! Texture and flavor was spot on! Thank you for another winner.
Forgive me if you have commented on this but if I wanted to make mini muffins (going to a cocktail party) what would be the cooking time and should I reduce the baking temp be 25 degrees?
Hi Maryolwen, for mini muffins, bake at 350 degrees (the entire time) for about 12-14 minutes, give or take. Keep a close eye on them and use a toothpick to test for doneness.
Hi Sally
So two questions can these be made in a muffin top pan
The best part of the muffin are the muffin tops
And also when I need to reduce my oven if I hit bake 350° my oven drops all the way down to around 311°
So not sure how this is going to work
Tia
Hi Karen, we haven’t tried this recipe in a muffin top pan, but we can’t see why that wouldn’t work. We’re unsure of the bake time. When you reduce your oven, does it eventually come back to 350 degrees? If not, you may just have to allow a few more minutes for the muffins to cook through. Hope this is helpful!
Yes my oven comes back to 350° most of the things I take I take at 350°. I don’t know why it dropped so much and like starting over to preheat
OK so maybe I will try a couple as a muffin top and the rest as regular muffins
Thanks so much for getting back to me
Simple recipe to follow, and the muffins came out looking great and tasting delicious – another big hit with the family!
We are such big fans of all of your recipes – thank you for sharing your talent with all of us.
Omg!!! Super super delicious! They turned out so well that I’m finding it difficult to find words to describe the experience of biting into one. They are crunchy, soft, fluffy all at the same time. The half molten chocochips make the centre so perfectly gooey. Absolutely divine! Thank you Sally for such awesome recipes and for explaining all the steps so well. If an attachment was possible, I would’ve uploaded the pics of my muffins. Love your recipes!
I made these as mini muffins and loved them! I did a half whole wheat and half regular flour. I also added macadamia nuts for extra iron for my kiddos. AMAZING. This is the forth week in a row where I will be serving my family a Sally’s muffin or bread recipe for Friday morning breakfast. Its such a treat! Thank you Sally!
Helllooo. I’ve ran out of normal muffin liners and I’ve only got mini ones. How long would you recommend baking them for as I don’t wanna over bake them?
Hi Hiba, for mini muffins, bake at 350 degrees (the entire time) for about 12-14 minutes, give or take. Keep a close eye on them and use a toothpick to test for doneness. If you want to use your standard muffin pan without liners, you can simply spray your pan before adding the batter!
Hi Sally
I made these muffins and they came out wonderful. They remind me of a chocolate muffin you would find in one of our local bakeries. The texture was tender, the flavor was prominent but not over powering and the appearance had that classic bakery style look. I did use King Arthur’s gluten free flour 1 to 1 ratio. Superb as usual!
I love how your recipes make me look like I know what I’m doing, even with my mishap. “1 tsp baking soda” I declared and dumped 1 tsp baking powder. Cursing I fished out what I could and the muffins forgave me. I love coffee and chili with my chocolate so I added a scant 2 Tbs room temp brewed coffee to the milk and a little over a ¼ tsp cayenne. Loved the little heat but for me I think I’ll round it out to ½ tsp for next time.
Thanks for sharing!
These muffins restored my faith in my baking abilities! I’ve been experimenting with sugar free/ low carb baked goods and desserts for quite a long time now, and unfortunately it seems like everything had just been turning out so-so. Obviously these are not low carb, and while I did replace half the sugar with etherilytol, they turned out perfect! So high, with that delightful crisp muffin top! Very quick and easy to whip up, no butter to soften (I used grapeseed oil – healthier, but no taste), and baked up perfect. Based on the dry ingredient measurements, I think these would also be perfect for a quart- sized mason jar gift mix (planning to give one to my mom for mother’s day, provided she likes the “samples” I gave her).
What’s the substitute for sour cream?
Hi Diana, full fat plain yogurt will also work. Same amount.
These muffins are amazing! They have a very rich, chocolate flavor and wonderful texture. Personally, I wasn’t too crazy about the addition of chocolate chips. They were kind of overkill in my mouth. I left them out the next few times I made them and they were still awesome. If I could only figure out how to keep the tops from coming out flat. Maybe it’s my altitude of 5,830 in Colorado. I tried a couple of high altitude adjustments with no luck. Still delicious, just not as pretty. Although the flat tops do make for a delicious crunchy chewy experience!
I did not have semi sweet chocolate chips so I used some espresso ones that I had in the pantry. They were so delicious.
Just wanted to say that these muffins are such a win! It’s super easy to make and even the first bake turns out awesome. I felt that the choco chips were slightly extra but when they came out of the over they gave the muffin that amazing gooey-ness.
I was having a pretty awful day today and when I saw this recipe I thought ‘I need this win’, so remembering that I had half a thing of homemade sour cream on the fridge leftover from mexican night, I decided to try it! I didn’t have cupcake liners, and only had half the sour cream needed, so I decided to half the recipe and throw it in a greased 7×7 pan (I really didn’t have the energy to grease the cupcake tin!). IT WAS AMAZING! This brought a lot of joy to my night! The cake is really fluffy and light and the chocolate chips make for an amazing texture and taste, and really, I enjoyed it tremendously. The quantity was perfect for social isolating with only two others. Anyway, 10/10, would make again (will! can’t wait to make it for friends!) and 100% reccomend everyone to try it. Saved my night!
Would avocado or grapeseed oil be too heavy for these muffins? I agree on the coconut oil being too greasy in some recipes. I just do not purchase vegetable oil anymore as a personal preference but I will if that is what it takes to make these muffins! Thank you.
Hi Candice! Avocado oil should work just fine in these. I’m unsure about grapeseed oil. I haven’t tested either though, so let us know if you try one or both. Maybe I’ll do some testing too. Thank you for asking!
I used grapeseed oil as well and they turned out delicious! I do like my muffins super moist, so I might try the coconut oil next time.
Grapeseed oil worked perfect for me, muffins came out high and fluffy!
I had to make these absolutely right away – I loved the skinny version so much, and these are just as good. I thank you and your recipes for making sure I ate breakfast every school day this term. <3
They looked good, and tasted so yummy.thank you
I halved the recipe and it made 12 cup cakes and I decided to add Nutella chocolate topping a slither on each cake topping then sprinkled with white chocolate stars. They looked good and tasted good.
Are the chips mini or regular sized?
Hi Renee, use regular size. If using mini chocolate chips, you could certainly use the same amount but that would be a lot. I would perhaps reduce down to 1 and 1/4 cups mini.
These look amazing!! Can this recipe be converted to 6 jumbo muffins? If so, how? Thank you for bringing so much goodness into our lives!!
Hi Michelle! Great question. I will add those instructions to the recipe notes now!