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
My 13 year old daughter made these muffins. They were AMAZING bakery quality muffins.
So happy to hear this, Hadeel!
Sally I had a weekend of making muffins. I made these double chocolate, orange lemon poppyseed, apple, blueberry, strawberry cheesecake and peach crumble. They all turned out fabulous. You are definitely the “QUEEN” of muffins. Thanks Sally
ADDED EXACTLY 45 (fresh, washed, patted dry) blackberries to the wet mixture before I mixed it with the dry and they were INCREDIBLE. Easily the greatest muffins I’ve ever made in my life. Used full fat Greek yogurt (CABOT is the BEST!) accidentally baked at 325 for 8 min instead of 5, then did the 12 min at 350 and there were still AMAZING. Added a little handful of sprouted rolled oats, a little handful of chia seeds, and a little handful of flax seed meal and your would never know (but it made me feel better to put a little more nutrient dense things in it!)
YES SALLY YES WHOOP
I cannot even. I was laughing while eating these because they are so freaking good! I even made them with gluten-free flour and almond milk and they were absolutely delicious. I also added diced strawberries to a few of them as well. Incredible. Ridiculously good.
Can you substitute melted butter for the oil?
Hi Mary! It’s best to stick to oil for this recipe. Butter will yield dry-tasting muffins.
I have made many of your recipes, and they are all absolutely delicious. I added some cinnamon to this recipe and I wasn’t disappointed. Can’t wait to try yet another recipe.
They turned out pretty good! I wish they were a little softer but otherwise really yummy!
Such a great recipe! I had less fat sour cream so I had to use that but had no milk so used whipping cream. They turned out wonderful my family loved them!
Fantastic muffins! I have been looking for a double-chocolate muffin recipe for awhile that matches the richness and deliciousness of one I made years ago, and lost the recipe. This is pretty close or better. I put chopped walnuts in half the batch but honestly they’re so good, they’re perfect as written in the recipe. I used plain yogurt because I already had it.
Used full fat greek yogurt instead and turned out great!
I made them yesterday, and they turned out so great! It was chocolatey, moist, and tender. I used plain yogurt instead of sour cream, and the final product was just perfect. The best chocolate muffin recipe ever. Thank you so much for all the great recipes, Sally.
Smiling from ear to ear right now…I would post a picture of my Happy Face but there’s too much Double Chocolate Chocolate Chip Muffin stuck between my teeth and I’m going for seconds!
This recipe tastes very good, although the tops are a tad hard, not sure if it’s user error or what
A special treat at my BnB! Yummy
This is my fav Sally recipe! I make them dairy free by using plain almond milk, dairy free yogurt (usually oat), and dairy free chocolate chips, and you wouldn’t know the difference! I prefer these muffins over chocolate cake! I used extra large eggs because that’s what we buy, and I cut the oil to 1/3 cup. Perfection!
Hey Sally, am I able to replace the sour cream with regular half and half cream?
Hi Laney, We don’t recommend that swap. Yogurt would be the best substitute for sour cream!
This is the best chocolate muffin recipe I have come across – I make a double batch and freeze for my husbands work lunches and they are awesome. 10/10 !!
I’d love to make these for my dad for his birthday and I’m trying to use less refined sugar in my cooking and baking. Would you suggest honey as a substitute? Should I eliminate oil since honey would add moisture?
Hi Brittany, we don’t recommend that swap without some recipe testing, since it isn’t always a 1:1 swap. You might enjoy these lighter chocolate chip muffins instead.
I have made them with 1/3 refined sugar, 1/3 Stevia, and 1/3 Splenda. Stevia is least refined, but my husband can taste it unless I add the 1/3 white sugar. This combination works really well. If you use honey, maple syrup or agave you will need to a bit more flour, and agave is a bit sweeter so use a little less than 1:1. Happy Baking!
Hi Sally!
Ive made these and your chocolate chip muffins several times and they always turn out really well for me.
I just wanted to know about chilling the batter before baking. Ive seen several videos on YouTube saying that its an important step but yours turn out well for me. Would i notice any difference if I chilled this before baking?
Hi Freddie, so glad you enjoyed them. We don’t recommend chilling our muffin batter but you can certainly give it a try if you like!
This is the best chocolate chip muffins recipe! I appreciate your explicit baking details. We will be making it so many more times.
My little sister made this recipe all by herself (she is 12)! They came out perfectly. An amazing recipe that all MUST try!
Super yummy! I substituted half the AP flour with whole wheat flour and it still came out perfect. Thanks!!
These are delicious!!
Love these! I didn’t have chocolate chips so I chopped some Ghiridelli and OMG! Fab! Thanks for being consistent and releasing tested and delicious recipes!
Can I add any coffee to enhance the chocolate flavour? The person I’m baking for doesn’t want the added chocolate chips (crazy I know) but I still want them to be very rich and chocolatey
HI Kaitlyn, We can’t see why not! We’d recommend starting with half a teaspoon of instant coffee powder, then adjusting for taste in future batches. Let us know what you try!
I absolutely love love this double chocolate muffin with chocolate chips. I just made these muffins in the jumbo size and they were absolutely perfect. My question is, I need to make this muffin in the mini size. Do I still put them in the oven at a high temperature for five minutes or do I just bake these at 350° for the entire time? Thanks so much.
Hi Diane, we’re so glad you enjoy these muffins! For mini muffins, bake them for about 11-13 minutes at 350 for the entire time.
Would I be able to use Dutch Process Cocoa instead of regular and heavy cream instead of milk? I have plenty of each as almost every recipe I follow used them exclusively. ☹️
Hi Andy, You could get away use dutch process cocoa powder, but the muffins may not rise as much. See the list of key ingredients in the post for details. Whole milk is best for the liquid, as heavy cream will be a bit too thick. Hope you enjoy the muffins!
Love that recipe Yummy can’t go wrong with Sally thanks again !
Can melted butter be used in place of oil? Love your recipes.
Hi Sue, 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.
My fave chocolate muffin recipe