Easy Chocolate Chip Muffins

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Easy Chocolate Chip Muffins

These easy chocolate chip muffins are perfectly soft and moist, with that classic bakery style muffin top and studded with milk and dark chocolate chips. They are SO easy to make, a one bowl recipe, and will allow you to make bakery style muffins at home!

How do I make my muffins light and fluffy?

The best way to make the muffins light and fluffy is by using room temp ingredients and a lot of leavener, in this case baking powder, more leavener than you’d use in a cake. This will make the muffins super soft and fluffy. Another trick in making sure not to over mix the batter, this will mean that the glutens are relaxed and the muffins are even lighter.

Ingredient Notes

The ingredients that go into these Easy Chocolate Chip Muffins

Melted Butter – adds so much moisture, fat and flavour

Sugar – provides sweetness and makes the muffin softer

Eggs – binds the muffins together and helps them rise

Chocolate Chips – I love using both milk and dark chocolate for a rich and sweet chocolate flavour

Flour – is the base for the muffins

Baking Powder – to help the muffins rise and give them that classic muffin top

Vanilla Paste or Extract – adds so much flavour, depth and that classic vanilla smell

Salt – balances everything out and enhances all of the flavours

Sour Cream – is key to make the chocolate chip muffins moist and tender

Buttermilk – adds so much lightness, moisture and a tang of flavour

Granulated Sugar – to help get those bakery style crispy muffin tops

How to make Chocolate Chip Muffins – step by step

1. Start by preheating your oven to (220°C / 425°F / gas mark 7)
2. In a large microwave safe bowl, melt the butter and add in the sugar and mix well.
3. Next, crack in the eggs and whisk together.
4. Pour in the buttermilk, sour cream, salt and vanilla. Whisk until everything is well mixed. (If you don’t have buttermilk, simply mix 60ml (¼ cup) of milk with 2 tsp of lemon juice or vinegar and let it sit for around 10 minutes, before adding it into the egg mixture.)
5. Next, add in the flour and baking powder and fold till combined, but don’t overmix.
6. Coat the chocolate chips in 2 tbsp of flour and coat them really well, massage them a little longer than you think you need to, they should be covered in flour.
7. Add the chocolate chips into the muffin batter and fold gently.
8. Scoop the muffin batter into a lined muffin or cupcake tray, using a large ice cream scoop or a ½ cup measure. You should get 12 muffins.
9. Sprinkle on some granulated sugar and extra chocolate chips if desired.
10. Bake for 5 minutes at (220°C / 425°F / gas mark 7), then turn the oven down to (190°C / 375°F / gas mark 5) and bake for an additional 15 minutes, until muffins are golden brown and spring back to the touch. Remove from the oven and allow to cool for at least 15 minutes before eating!
11. Enjoy!

How do you get high domed and tall muffins?

There is nothing like a high domed, bakery style muffin top and this is how you can achieve this at home!

1. Bake on a high heat to start – This will make the muffins rise super fast and create that high dome, then we turn the heat down to bake the centre of the muffin off, all while keeping that muffin top.
2. Use a lot of baking powder – Using more baking powder than you’d use in a cake, or sponge is so important, we want the muffin to be light and have a very open texture and crumb, we also use more flour to give more structure to the muffins.
3. Preheat your oven – Preheating your oven ahead of time is always a good idea, but with muffins it is a must. Essentially to get the bakery style muffin top, we need a really high heat to begin, so the oven being properly heated is key to achieve that.

How to keep the chocolate chips from sinking in the muffins:

To stop the chocolate chips from sinking, you need to coat them really well with about 1 – 2 tbsp of flour. When you are baking with fruit, because it is wet on the outside the flour sticks straight away but, since the chocolate chips are dry you need to massage them in the flour really well for a couple of minutes. This may seem excessive but this will ensure the chocolate chips won’t sink to the bottom of the muffins.

How should you store these Chocolate Chip Muffins?  How long do Chocolate Chip Muffins last?

If you keep your muffins in an airtight container or tin, they should last for about 4 days, up to a week. You can line the inside of the container with paper towels or parchment paper to keep the muffins from smooshing.

Replacement for buttermilk:

If you don’t have buttermilk, don’t fret! You can simply mix 60ml (¼ cup) of milk with 2 tsp of lemon juice or vinegar and let it sit for around 10 minutes, before using it. Essentially you can use any acid, lemon juice, lime juice or vinegar, to make the milk into buttermilk.

Replacement for sour cream:

The best replacement for sour cream for this recipe is greek yogurt, ideally with some fat in the yogurt but even a fat free greek yogurt will work, it just won’t be as moist. Just make sure you are using real greek yogurt and not greek style yogurt.

Tips and Tricks – Easy Chocolate Chip Muffins

• MAKE SURE – you preheat your oven in advance, this will ensure you get those high domed muffin tops
• Don’t overmix – your batter will ensure that the muffins stay. Light and super soft!
• Make sure that your baking powder  – is in date and still active, otherwise the muffins won’t rise.
• To scoop the muffins – use a large ice cream scoop or a ½ cup measure, this will make sure all of the muffins are even in size. 

The recipe video is on my TikTok and IG – please tag @aceofspoons_ if you make this recipe