These Chocolate Chip Muffins have a beautiful golden dome top (we all know muffin tops are the best part!) and are nice and moist inside, not dry and crumbly which is a notorious problem with muffins. No stand mixer required, you just need a wooden spoon and 10 minutes.
This muffin recipe is a great base recipe for sweet muffins. The chocolate chips can be substituted with anything you want. Blueberries, raspberries, nuts, apple – let your imagination run wild!
Muffins are one of those recipes that many people think / say are really easy to make but in actual fact, I think a lot come out quite disappointing. The biggest problem being muffins that are dry and hard. I’ve made muffins in my time that I swear were as hard as baseballs!
Over baking is one culprit for this. But the batter is also a contributor. To avoid dry muffins, some recipes make the batter by creaming butter in a stand mixer. But it’s ingrained in my mind that muffins should be a fast recipe, and creaming butter doesn’t qualify!
The other way is to make the muffins using both baking powder AND baking soda / bi carb (which is baking powder on steroids) for extra lift power, plus buttermilk for moistness and also to activate the baking soda (which requires something with acid like milk + vinegar, yoghurt, sour cream or buttermilk to activate it).
This is my chosen method that I have always used. I know there are many muffin recipes out there that do not use baking soda and/or buttermilk. But they are not as moist and fluffy as these. I have made more than my share in my lifetime in a bid to find the moistest muffin with the least ingredients possible, and concluded that it is not possible to omit these without compromising the muffin!
And the good news? You don’t have to use buttermilk. You can substitute with milk and vinegar, left to curdle. I don’t always recommend that as a substitute, but for this recipe, I can barely tell the difference. Actually, I can’t tell the difference.
I know curdled milk doesn’t look very pretty, but I wanted you to see what it looks like because this is the magic ingredient in this recipe!
My “go to” sweet muffin base recipe used to be a Ina Garten blueberry muffin recipe. It really is a wonderful moist muffin BUT the batter is slightly thinner than this one so the choc chips sink to the bottom (even when I tossed in flour which is a trick that usually works for things like berries, like what I use for my Blueberry Lemon Loaf).
So now this recipe is my base recipe, and it has never failed me. My recipe is slightly adapted from this brilliant Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Muffins recipe by Little Sweet Baker. This recipe is BETTER than Ina Gartens, I’ve tried both!
PS I top the muffins with extra chocolate chips so they are visible when they come out of the oven. This is optional. 🙂
If you don’t use paper patties and spray the muffin tin instead, the tops will spill over and become a bit crispy, just like muffins you get from some bakeries. My personal preference is to use paper patties because clean up is easier and I think it looks prettier, but it is entirely up to you!
Happy weekend! What have you got planned? Maybe baking some MUFFINS??? 😉 – Nagi x
PS These freeze fabulously. Promise. I’ve been eating frozen ones all week!
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Best Chocolate Chip Muffin
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
- 2 1/2 cups / 375g plain flour (all purpose flour)
- 3 tsp baking powder
- 1 tsp baking soda / bi carb soda
- 1 cup / 220g white sugar (Note 1)
- 1/4 tsp salt
Wet Ingredients
- 1 cup / 250ml buttermilk (Note 2)
- 1/4 cup / 60g unsalted butter, melted
- 4 tbsp / 80 ml vegetable oil
- 2 large eggs, lightly whisked
- 2 tsp vanilla extract
Chocolate Chips
- 1 3/4 cups / 300g chocolate chips (US: semi-sweet)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 200C/390F (all ovens) (Note 6). Line a 12 hole muffin tin with paper patties.
- Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, sugar and salt in a bowl. Stir through chocolate chips.
- In a separate bowl, whisk buttermilk, melted butter, oil, eggs and vanilla.
- Make a well in the flour bowl, pour in egg mixture. Mix until just combine - try not to stir more than 8 times. Some flour lumps in the batter is fine.
- Divide batter between paper cases. Top with remaining 1/4 cup chocolate chips.
- Bake for 5 minutes, then turn down to 180C/350F (fan forced/convection) and bake for a further 15 minutes, or until a skewer inserted into the muffin comes out clean.
- Remove muffins from the muffin tin immediately onto a cooling rack.
- Serve warm or at room temperature (warm is extra yum!)
Recipe Notes:
Nutrition Information:
Life of Dozer: Getting waaaaaay too close to the muffins…… But I can’t blame him. The smell as these were cooling must’ve been torture for him!!!
Count the muffins: Yes there is 1 missing. Restraint is imposed on Dozer by me. There was no one around to control ME.
Very disappointed with these. The flavour is quite nice but they were very dry, no idea why. I also forgot to reduce the sugar (as all RTE baking recipes call for WAY too much) and they are inordinately sweet… very sad that $10+ of ingredients will end up in the bin.
I made these muffins while staying at daughter’s for school lunch’s. Turns out a lot of those muffins never made it out of the kitchen. Everyone love them. I do lots of cooking when at my daughter’s and these muffins have become the most requested thing I’ve ever made. Fine by me. Super easy to make delicious! Thanks
Nagi.
Very nice, my children both approved and easy to make.
I don’t know what happened but these did not work for me. Followed all steps. Seemed like the batter was too runny and the choc chips all sank to the bottom. Anyone have any ideas on why?
Wow, these are beautiful.
I always make your chocolate choc chip muffins as my son loves them and that’s saying something as he’s extremely hard to feed. These muffins are another fantastic recipe. I’m sure the kids will love them
So yummy!!! My family loved those moist delicious muffins! i didn’t have buttermilk so I used milk and apple cider vinegar to make it (based on the note provided by Nagi). Loved them and will make again!!!!
Omg yum!! I dont know how someone said theirs were dry, mine were perfection. I used coconut oil and the milk / vinegar method but had to use red wine vinegar and worked well! Flavour is delish and light fluffy with a nice crust. Also used brown sugar. I never normally leave comments but these were worthy of one 🙂
I halved the recipe and made six jumbo muffins. Only had extra-large eggs so used those. They came out delicious! The crumb was incredibly soft and moist.
I am a total baking noob, but discovering and following this recipe yielded mouthwatering muffins and boosted my confidence with baking. Thank you Nagi for wonderful recipes, ranging from sweet and savoury goods!
I made it for a friend’s daughter .It was loved by the whole family not just the kid.It was super yummy.A big fan of yours as I have used your recipes a lot.Thank you.
These are the best muffins I’ve ever made! Made 2 batches this week, choc chip and then white choc and raspberry. I used muffin wraps instead of patty pans and there was no spill over. I’d definitely be happy to buy one of these from a cafe! Thanks Nagi, you’re the best! x
Wowee absolutely divine! Your recipe is definitely fool proof cause i never thought I’d be able to bake anything decent lol! Thank u sooo much Nagi. My family have enjoyed your recipes all throughout 2022… my 3 year old daughter says im the best cooker in the world loool
I made the batter and split to make both blueberry and chocolate chip muffins. They were both sooo good!
Super good! I made a chocolate chip and blueberry same time. Those are amazing! Soft, moist, and delicious!
These are amazing! Moist, keep well, perfect amount of sweetness and a glorious golden top. Perfect as always Nagi!
Hi Nagi, can I please ask you for baking muffins, where you put in the oven? I have a Miele oven with 4 rack holders and I usually put everything on the third so the trays sit in the middle of the oven. But my muffins did come out with a dome.
These are fantastic! I made a double batch, half of them chocolate chip and the other half raspberries. Yummmmmy!
Not sure why but this recipe was a average for me. Came out very tough (how do you only stir 8 times?) and bland. I’d made your blueberry muffins the day before and OMG amazing so surely disappointed by this one. I’m quite an experienced baker (but no expert).
Thankyou Nagi. I am trying to move away from packet cakes/muffins etc and these turned out beautifully. I used choc chips this time, and will try blueberries next. Mine were a bit bigger than yours, but I like how that makes them crispier around the edge.
Woo hoo! I am glad you liked the muffins, Sarelle! N x
Just made a batch for breakfast, following the recipe exactly (using the milk and vinegar sub) and they came out beautifully. Another great Nagi recipe. Light and moist on the inside and a little crispy on the top crust (didn’t use patty cases). Excellent taste and texture. Perfect. I’ve frozen them as treats for the future (thank you, past me).
One question though: I wasn’t clear on whether the 1/4 cup of choc chips to sprinkle on top is part of the 300g of choc chips total…? The recipe says (step 2) to add choc chips to the flour so I added them all; should this say to add choc chips minus the 1/4 cup for the top if desired? I imagine so, as they came out with the perfect, decadent amount of choc chips through the mix — any more would have been overdoing it…? Thanks!
These are delicious!
I took a risk and used natural yoghurt instead of butter milk and they came out as described. Although the took 25mins to cook in my oven.
I will try again with Buttermilk to compare.