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.
Found this recipe today and made some for my kids’ lunches. They were awesome! Now I’m enjoying a warm muffin and a cuppa. Seriously great recipes!
An absolute standout recipe that has been on our weekly baking rotation for a very long time! The kids and I make them and they’ve never failed; I rarely have to help them now! I never remember to buy buttermilk so always opt for the milk and vinegar substitute and it curdles to perfection by folllwing Nagi’s steps in the note. I only do 110g sugar instead of the 220g and they are the perfect amount of sweet still. Foolproof and absolutely delicious!
this is a great recipe, maybe you can suggest that there should be around 80 grams mixture per muffin cup, to get 18 muffins. It works a treat by simply putting the muffin pan on the scales.
Not sure what went wrong for me on this one – my first less than 5 star outcome from a Nagi recipe. I think maybe my muffin tin is too small for this batter. I saw some comments saying they got 15-17 muffins out of it. I poured into paper cases in a 12 hole tin, 7cm x 3cm (60ml) and they over spilled and joined together. I used a skewer to check but after taking them out realised they weren’t properly baked in the middle, the tops were flat. I wish I had spread the batter over 16 cases, that may have been better. I’ll try that next time.
I make these muffins all the time and they are a winner! For slight healthiness I sub the plain flour with wholemeal flour and reduce the amount of sugar to just over half a cup and they still turn out fab! Thanks Nagi for a great foolproof recipe 🙂
I have recently started my baking journey and these were: 1. SO easy to make (I made them with my little brother) 2. Absolutely delicous and crispy 3. Delicous. Looked great and tasted great. I don’t think the milk and vinegar thing really did anything because it just looked like normal milk. But the were AWESOME! Delicous recipe. 🧁❤️
THESE ARE SO GOOD, THEY SHOULD BE ILLEGAL!!!! Warning: HIGHLY ADDICTIVE!!!!!! I followed Nagi’s recipe to a T. I baked these planning to bring them to a friend’s place tonight, but I’m really fighting myself right now from GOBBLING THEM ALL UP.
I made these Muffins and they were awesome, my family loved them, Crispy on the top and very chocolaty. I’d add a bit more sugar ;). I was wondering if you could make the batter at night and store it in the fridge to bake fresh and crispy in the morning… has someone done that?
I make these in mini size muffins for our after-church social time. Many have complimented. My husband requests his own batch. I use 1 Tbls lemon juice & fill milk to make 1 cup. I like mini choc chips & bake at 350* for 12-15 mins for 24 minis. Fantastic!
Your recipes are always THE BEST. I gave 5 stars because I must have done something incorrectly. My muffins came out dry but they still tasted great.
Amazing. The little man asked for chocolate chip muffins for breakfast and this recipe did not disappoint. Used the milk/vinegar sub for the buttermilk, reduced the sugar slightly to my family’s taste, high quality ingredients, the muffins not only came out beautiful, but delicious and moist.
Every recipe turns out fabulous Nagi, you’re my go to for everything now! My kids went crazy for these and said they’re even better than the canteens! That’s a pretty high standard in their eyes. Thank you they are delicious I only have a couple left and they are still warm!
Love this recipe and love your other recipes too. Thank you
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.
Wow Hannah…very harsh…I have to believe you may have made a mistake…these muffins are FABULOUS and anything but dry…I take offence to your tone…Nagi’s recipes are OVER THE TOP!
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.