Double Chocolate Chip Muffins

If you’ve been on the hunt for the perfect double chocolate chip muffin recipe, you can stop here. These muffins taste like they came straight from a bakery with a rich and moist texture, loads of melty chocolate chips, round muffin tops, and a sprinkle of flaky sea salt. Better yet, they stay moist for DAYS after baking so you can snack on these all week long!

What makes these the BEST double chocolate chip muffins?

I am so picky when it comes to muffins, mainly because it’s tough to achieve both a moist and rich consistency with a rounded muffin top. It’s usually one or the other, but not with these!

The texture of these muffins is dense and moist with speckles of quality melted chocolate throughout. But they also bake with tall and rounded muffin tops using these two methods:

1. Resting the batter for 1 hour – I’ll go into more detail later in the post, but resting the batter for 1 hour before baking gives the leaveners a head start. This way, the batter is already light and fluffed before baking…leading to taller muffin tops.
2. Alternating cups when baking – This is optional but highly recommended. The muffins are baked in two batches where each batch is baked with half the amount of muffins. This is because the muffins are evenly spaced with one cup between each. This space allows the oven heat to evenly flow through the muffins, thus baking taller tops.

The combination of these two techniques, paired with the right amount of ingredients, will lead to the most perfect bakery-quality double chocolate muffin made right at home.

Double chocolate muffin key ingredients

These double chocolate muffins have a few secret ingredients to take them from homemade to gourmet:

1. Dutch Process Cocoa – This is different from regular cocoa as it has been alkalized to cut the acidity. This gives it a rich color and smooth flavor.
2. Maple Syrup – Only 2 tablespoons goes into this recipe, but it’s enough to make a huge difference. Using a sugar in liquid form not only adds sweetness, but also an extra layer of moisture. You can definitely tell a difference when it’s not there!
3. Oil – Rather than butter, oil is used to make these muffins SUPER moist. Since it’s all fat, it creates a rich consistency that allows these muffins to stay moist for days.
4. Buttermilk – Instead of regular milk, buttermilk is used due to its thick consistency and acidity. The acid helps activate the baking soda, leading to a taller muffin.
5. Good Quality Chocolate – For the best results, use good quality chocolate chips as these will fully melt into little chocolate pockets throughout the muffins. I prefer Guittard dark chocolate chips, Ghirardelli dark chocolate chips, or Trader Joe’s semisweet chocolate chips (because they taste more like dark chocolate).
6. Flaky sea salt – The cherry on top! Just a bit of salt helps bring out the flavor of these chocolate muffins.

How to make double chocolate chip muffins

Muffins are the hardest for me to get the recipe just right, but the easiest to make! There are essentially three paint steps to make these chocolate muffins:

1. Dry Ingredients – Combine ALL of the dry ingredients in one bowl, including the sugar and chocolate chips.
2. Wet Ingredients – Combine all of the wet ingredients in a separate bowl, which includes the eggs, oil, buttermilk, and any additional liquid flavorings or fats.
3. Mix Together – Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix to combine. That’s it!

Because of the large amount of leaveners in the dry ingredients, the batter will start to froth as the wet ingredients are mixed in. This is due to the fact that baking powder activates with liquid, and baking soda activates with liquid and acid (such as buttermilk). So be very careful not to disrupt this reaction as you stir the two together. Mix JUST until it’s combined, otherwise, you could deflate the batter.

The secret to all chocolate muffins

I first discovered this muffing baking trick when I made my chocolate chip muffin recipe and now I’ll never go back. This simple set leads to extra tall muffin tops every time!

So what’s this secret? Right after the batter is mixed, it rests for 1 hour at room temperature before it’s baked. During this hour, magic happens. By resting the batter, we’re allowing the leaveners to fully do their thing. It’s like giving them a head start, allowing the batter to lift before it lifts once more in the heat of the oven.

After the hour, another important step awaits. In order to get the batter into the muffin liners, you must be very gentle as you scoop. We don’t want to disrupt all the hard work the leaveners did while resting. So as you scoop, just make one smooth motion through the batter in order to fill the scooper. Then plop it into the liner and move on to the next. Don’t mix around the batter, don’t make a double pass, just scoop and plop.

This will become instinctual after you notice just how fluffy the batter has become. You can SEE how light it is, so it’s easy to not want to deflate it. It’s an hour well worth it!

For more muffin recipes, check out my:

• BEST Chocolate Chip Muffins
• BEST Blueberry Muffins
• Chocolate Zucchini Muffins
• Caramel Apple Muffins
• Lemon Blueberry Muffins

Make sure to tag me @butternutbakery on Instagram if you make these double chocolate chip muffins. I love seeing my recipes come to life in YOUR kitchen! To pin this recipe and save it for later, you can use the button on the recipe card, the buttons above or below this post, or on any of the photos above. Happy baking!

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