This chocolate chip muffin recipe has remained a reader favorite since I first published it many years ago. These bakery-style chocolate chip muffins are BIG in size, flavor, and texture. They’re deliciously soft and moist with a crackly muffin top. Cinnamon spiced and loaded with chocolate chips, you’ll never turn to another muffin recipe again.
I originally published this recipe in 2013 and have since added new photos, a video tutorial, and more success tips.
Today’s homemade chocolate chip muffins rival any from a bakery. They’re large and in charge, bursting with flavor, and are topped with a sweet sparkly sugar crunch. Like an acceptable version of chocolate chip cookies for breakfast! It’s a variation from my master bakery-style muffin recipe.
One reader, Jennifer, commented: “This is the recipe I’ve been looking for! The muffins are light and moist, not too dense or heavy. I think this is the best muffin recipe on Sally’s site! I’ve made both jumbo and regular size muffins… Thank you for this wonderful recipe! ★★★★★”
Another reader, Sabrina, commented: “Me and my family loved this recipe, best muffins I’ve ever made. I wasn’t too sure about the cinnamon at first and was going to skip it, but I did end up adding half of it in the end and they came out perfect. Really loved the kick it gave. ★★★★★”
Video Tutorial
Ingredients in Chocolate Chip Muffins
Besides flavor and texture, you’ll appreciate the simple ingredient list. You only need a few basic ingredients to make absolutely awesome chocolate chip muffins. Each ingredient is important and transforms boring muffins into bakery-style chocolate chip muffins!
- Flour: Flour is the foundation of these chocolate chip muffins muffins; we need a thick batter to hold all of the chocolate chips.
- Baking Powder & Baking Soda: A lot of leavener is required to create a significant rise against all of the wet ingredients.
- Cinnamon & Nutmeg: Cinnamon is a muffin’s favorite spice. You only need a small pinch of nutmeg, too. I promise you that nutmeg is what most chocolate chip muffin recipes are missing. You’ll never go back!
- Vanilla Extract & Salt: Both are used for flavor.
- Eggs: Eggs add moisture and bind everything together.
- Sour Cream or Plain Yogurt: Just like I do with chocolate covered strawberry muffins, I began adding a touch of sour cream to this batter. It helps keep the muffins extra moist and I highly recommend it!
- Sugar: Use granulated sugar to sweeten these muffins.
- Oil: Oil produces a moist, tender muffin. These days I combine a little melted butter and oil. See my recipe note.
- Milk: Milk adds plenty of moisture and lightens up the crumb.
- Chocolate Chips: These wouldn’t be chocolate chip muffins without chocolate chips! I always keep a large stash on hand for these muffins and chocolate chip cookies.
- Coarse Sprinkling Sugar: My secret ingredient used for sparkle and crunch on top. I like Sugar in the Raw or you can use white sparkling sugar sprinkles, usually found with the sprinkles in the baking aisle.
How to Make Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Muffins
This chocolate chip muffin recipe couldn’t be easier. The batter comes together in minutes, so it’s a wonderful recipe for busy mornings.
Mix the wet ingredients and dry ingredients separately by hand, then combine them. The batter will be thick, which is ideal for holding muffin add-ins like fruit, nuts, or chocolate chips. Muffin batter is much thicker than cupcake batter because muffins are more dense. The thicker the batter, the less likely the add-ins will sink to the bottom.
- Tip: Make sure the eggs, sour cream, and milk are at room temperature, which incorporates them quicker and easier with other ingredients. I recommend taking these ingredients out of the refrigerator about 30 minutes before starting.
Divide the batter in your muffin pan and fill each all the way to the top. You can make this recipe as 6 large muffins (shown), 14-15 standard size muffins, or 40 mini muffins. Top with a sprinkle of coarse sugar for a truly authentic bakery-style muffin!
Don’t Over-mix.
When combining the wet and dry ingredients, don’t over mix. This is very important to ensure soft and fluffy chocolate chip muffins. You’ll be tempted to keep on mixing because this batter is so thick, but it only takes about 20 strokes to mix it all together. You might notice a few lumps in the batter, but that’s normal. Remember, don’t overmix!
The Secret Trick for Tall Muffin Tops
Fill your muffin tins all the way to the top. If using a giant muffin tin, your batter will fill 6 large tins to the brim, as shown above. Bake the muffins for 5 minutes at 425°F, then for about 25 minutes at 350°F. This initial high oven temperature lifts the muffin top up quickly and creates a tall crust, which is why filling the muffin tins to the top is imperative.
Most muffins bake between 350°–375°F for the entire time. Setting the oven to 425°F initially and then lowering the temperature after 5 minutes guarantees muffins with tall, sugar-crusted, crackly tops. I do this in all my muffin recipes.
See my Master Bakery-Style Muffin Recipe for more flavor options and ideas.
More Favorite Muffin Recipes
- Blueberry Muffins
- Cranberry Orange Muffins
- Mini Chocolate Chip Muffins
- Banana Chocolate Chip Streusel Muffins
- Morning Glory Muffins
- Banana Muffins
Bakery-Style Chocolate Chip Muffins
- Prep Time: 15 minutes
- Cook Time: 30 minutes
- Total Time: 45 minutes
- Yield: 6 jumbo muffins or 15 standard muffins
- Category: Breakfast
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Description
Big, bakery style muffins stuffed with chocolate chips and topped with a sprinkle of sugar. This recipe is written to yield 6 jumbo muffins. For standard size or mini muffins, see notes at the bottom of the recipe. Baking times differ.
Ingredients
- 3 cups (375g) all-purpose flour (spooned & leveled)
- 3 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg (optional)
- 1/3 cup (5 Tablespoons; 71g) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
- 1/3 cup (80ml) oil (vegetable oil, melted coconut oil or avocado oil)*
- 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- 1/3 cup (80g) sour cream or yogurt, at room temperature*
- 1 cup (240ml) milk, at room temperature*
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 and 1/2 cups (270g) semi-sweet chocolate chips*
- optional: coarse sugar for sprinkling
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°F (218°C). Generously grease a jumbo 6-count muffin pan with butter or nonstick spray (nonstick spray recommended) or line with muffin liners. Set aside.
- Whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg together in a large bowl. Set aside.
- Whisk the melted butter, oil, sugar, and eggs together until combined. Then whisk in the sour cream, milk, and vanilla extract. Mixture will be pale yellow. Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and fold together with a silicone spatula or wooden spoon until completely combined. Use a whisk to rid any large lumps of flour, if needed. Avoid overmixing. The batter will be thick. Fold in the chocolate chips.
- Divide batter between each muffin cup, filling all the way to the top. Sprinkle with coarse sugar (for added crunch, recommended!). Bake at 425°F for 5 minutes, then, keeping the muffins in the oven, reduce the oven temperature to 350°F (177°C) and continue to bake for 25-26 minutes until the tops are lightly golden brown and centers are set. Stick a toothpick in the center of a muffin to test for doneness. If it comes out clean, the muffins are done.
- Allow to cool for 10 minutes in pan before serving.
- Cover leftover muffins and store at room temperature for 5 days or in the refrigerator for 1 week. Muffins freeze well for up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator or on the counter.
Notes
- Special Tools (affiliate links): 6-count Jumbo Muffin Pan | Jumbo Muffin Liners | Glass Mixing Bowls | Whisk | Silicone Spatula or Wooden Spoon | White Sparkling Sugar
- Oil: Vegetable oil, canola oil, or melted coconut oil work best in this recipe.
- Sour Cream/Yogurt: I recommend full fat sour cream or full fat or low fat plain yogurt. I don’t recommend fat-free for either.
- Milk: I like to use buttermilk or whole milk in this recipe because either add wonderful moisture and flavor. You can use any milk, dairy or nondairy, but the lower fat milk you use, the less flavorful and moist your muffins will taste.
- Chocolate Chips: I love using a mix of regular size and mini size chocolate chips for varying chocolate texture. You can also use chocolate chunks or milk chocolate chips.
- Standard Size Muffins or Mini Muffins: For standard size muffins baked in a 12-count muffin pan, reduce baking time to about 20 total minutes: 5 initial minutes at 425°F and 15 minutes at 350°F. Yields 14-15 standard size muffins. For about 40 mini muffins, bake for 11-13 minutes at 350°F the entire time.
- Why is everything at room temperature? All refrigerated items should be at room temperature so the batter mixes together easily and evenly. Read for more about the importance of room temperature ingredients.
Reader Comments and Reviews
I found the cinnamon to be bit overwhelming. Next time I’ll leave it out 🙂
The flavor is fantastic, I love the addition of cinnamon and nutmeg! The texture of my muffins are dense and spongy, perhaps over mixed? I didn’t think I over mixed them. Great recipe!
Hi Alyssa! Dense muffins can also be caused by too much flour in the batter. How did you measure the flour? Make sure to spoon and level (instead of scooping) to avoid packing in too much flour into your measuring cups – or use a kitchen scale. You can read more about properly measuring baking ingredients in this post.
So delicious! These were a big hit with my husband!!
Hello Sally, can I use full fat Greek yogurt instead of regular yogurt?
Hi Bernadette, absolutely!
Can you freeze these?
Yes! Muffins freeze well for up to 3 months. Thaw in the refrigerator or on the counter.
could I substitute blueberrys for the chocolate chips. These muffins came out great but wanted to try substituting blueberrys for the chips.
Hi Marianne, here is our recipe for jumbo blueberry muffins. Hope you enjoy it!
Fantastic every time.
I’m looking forward to trying this! Would using vanilla yoghurt be a problem? I happen to have that on hand so figured I’d ask before going out to buy sour cream or plain yoghurt.
Hi Gina, that will work in a pinch! The taste of the finished muffins may be just slightly different.
These muffins tasted delicious but over flowed a bit much and was super oily in the cake cases??? Maybe I should eliminate the vegetable oil
Hi Kerry! Were any of the ingredients over measured by chance? The batter should be nice and thick and not overflow. Some cupcake liners can seem a bit greasier than others, but as they cool that should help eliminate some of the greasiness, too. Thank you for giving these a try!
Hi Rachel, you can omit the cinnamon with no other changes needed. Enjoy!
This has been my go to chocolate chip muffin recipe for many years. It is delicious as written and if the recipe is increased by 50%, it perfectly fills my two USA Pan muffin pans for a total of 24 beautifully domed muffins. Over time we’ve learned that we prefer to omit the spices but that’s maybe because a teaspoon (in addition to vanilla, not instead of) of a bakery emulsion called Buttery Sweet Dough is what takes the flavor over the top for us. Thanks for another great tried and true recipe Sally and Team!
Can you add peanut butter to this recipe to make peanut butter chocolate chip muffins? If so how much peanut butter?
Hi Paula! Adding peanut butter to these muffins would require some testing. You may enjoy these peanut butter banana muffins!
Do you have a double chocolate chip recipe?
Hi Lee, here are our double chocolate muffins. You can use the baking time and directions from these chocolate chip muffins to make them jumbo size.
These were really good but I felt they needed a little more salt as they seemed to be missing something
these muffins were easy to make and really delicious. Now I’m going to look at other recipes to make!
This recipe was a hit! Even my picky son loved them. Thanks for the tip on how to get them to raise better.
delicious! Made them twice, the 1st time I overmixed the dough, definitely a mistake. Second time they were lighter, delicious. Only change is that after baking I left them in the muffin tin for a few minutes then turned them over onto a cookie sheet with waxed paper. Everyone really likes them
Finally a great chocolate chip muffin recipe! I grated fresh nutmeg and it was an added bonus. Love these! Thank you
Me and my family loved this recipe, best muffins I’ve ever made. I wasn’t too sure about the cinnamon at first and was going to skip it but I did end up adding half of it in the end and they came out perfect, really loved the kick it gave it.
This recipe is incredible!! Made delicious muffins that were a hit in my family!
I made a double batch and it was a LOT! 24 standard muffins, 12 mini bundt cakes, and 5 jumbo muffins. Not that I am complaining, they taste great. Used mini chips and doubled the salt. The baking time was a little long for the standard size muffins, and I took them out early. The cinnamon also read like too much and I would reduce that to half or a quarter.
This recipe is absolutely fire!
My go-to choc chip muffin recipe!
Yielded 12 jumbo muffins, not six.
I did not read the temperature guidelines well enough and burned muffins to boot.
Please adjust your directions so the temperature AND THE CHNAGE IN TEMP are super clear. I’d put them up top
425 for five mins then
350 for 20-25 mins
It was not clear and I wasted time and product.
Love making muffins and always trying different recipes and ingredients. This one was loved extra special by my whole family! Wonderful thank you
These muffins are exquisite! As a baker of 50 plus years they are the the best I’ve ever made.
Thank you!
Great recipe! Easy to whip up (especially if you remember to get the ingredients out of the fridge before you need to begin making the muffins). I’ve used both vegetable oil and coconut oil. I prefer the latter. I actually read the notes this time (like my 3rd bake) and realized I need less time at 350° for standard muffins! So I expect them to be better this time, which is saying something!
This recipe is PERFECT don’t know what the other reviews but very Easy to follow directions and taste Wonderful definitely a Keeper