These moist, light, & fluffy bakery style Chocolate Chip Muffins are perfect for impressing overnight guests or just treating yourself. They’ve got sky-high sugared tops, lots of chocolate chips, and the BEST flavor and texture. Recipe includes a how-to video!
(Still) The Best Chocolate Chip Muffin Recipe
When I first shared this recipe back in 2016, a google search for “chocolate chip muffins” generated roughly 1.2 million results. Today you’ll find that number is closer to 64 million. 🤯 Despite the stiff competition, I still firmly believe that I have the BEST chocolate chip muffin recipe out there…yes, better than 64 million other muffin recipes!
What makes these muffins so good? Well for starters, they’re huge–we’re talking jumbo, bakery style chocolate chip muffins! They’re also perfectly soft and fluffy (in contrast to the crisp biscotti I just shared), and of course, they’re chock full of chocolate chips. As a finishing touch, they’re sprinkled with coarse sugar, so not only are the tops slightly crisp, but they’re also kind of glittery. These muffins truly belong in a New York City bakery display, but luckily, you don’t have to plan a trip to NYC to try them.
Like my basic muffin recipe, this recipe uses a technique from The Kitchen Whisperer for nice, tall muffin tops. I use this technique in my banana muffins too, and so many of you have commented to let me know how well it works for you.
Let’s dive right into the details!
What You Need
Besides technique, these muffins use carefully selected ingredients to claim their title as the BEST. Here are a few of the game changers we’ll be using today:
- Butter + oil. I love to use this combination for a flavorful AND moist crumb. Don’t substitute one for the other–we need both!
- An extra egg white. What makes these muffins so light and fluffy? To get that bakery style chocolate chip muffin texture, we’re adding an additional egg white. Both your egg and egg white should be at room temperature for best results.
- Buttermilk. Buttermilk is the secret to moist muffins! These muffins begin their bake at a fairly high temperature, so it’s important that they have the right ingredients to prevent dryness. You could use my buttermilk substitute if you don’t have the real stuff on hand, but real buttermilk adds moisture and thickness that isn’t quite duplicated with a substitute. (And no, you do not need baking soda in this recipe just because we’re using buttermilk).
- Cornstarch. This is my secret ingredient for extra soft, tender muffins. Don’t skip it!
- Chocolate chips. I like to use a blend of mini and regular sized chocolate chips, and I always reserve a few for placing on the muffin tops just before baking.
- Coarse sugar. While you’ll use granulated sugar in the muffins, I recommend sprinkling coarse sugar on the tops. This is optional, but it really elevates the look and texture and makes these truly “bakery style” chocolate chip muffins!
SAM’S TIP: Don’t have jumbo muffin liners? You can make muffin liners out of parchment paper! Not only does this save you a trip to the store, but it also gives you that bakery-style look.
Remember, this is just an overview of the ingredients I used and why. For the full recipe please scroll down to the bottom of the post!
How to Make Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Muffins
- Whisk together the butter and oil and sugar. Add the egg and egg white, plus the vanilla. Stir this until it is very well combined, then add the buttermilk and stir well.
- Whisk together the dry ingredients in a separate bowl, then carefully fold them into the wet ingredients.
- Pause when the ingredients are about halfway mixed and add in the chocolate chips. Continue folding until everything is just combined.
- Cover your bowl with a towel and let the batter rest for 15 minutes or up to one hour while your oven preheats
Resting the batter is optional, but doing so gives us fluffier chocolate chip muffins and taller muffin tops. If you’ve made my buttermilk pancakes, you know I like to allow that batter rest while the pan preheats for the same reason, the batter thickens and the results are fluffier!
Now comes the special technique for chocolate chip muffins that rise higher than any others! You’ll start your oven on a high temperature and then drop the temperature about a third of the way through baking–without opening the door! This little trick makes your muffin tops spring to life without burning (or drying out) your muffin bottoms. Pretty cool, right?
- Once batter has had time to rest, preheat your oven and line your muffin tin.
- Fill your muffin liners with batter, making sure to fill them almost to the top (leave about ⅛ inch)–but don’t let them overflow.
- Sprinkle each muffin with coarse sugar and bake at 425F for 8 minutes. Reduce the oven to 350F (don’t open the door!) and continue baking until they begin to turn golden brown. This can take anywhere from 7-15 minutes, so keep an eye on them!
- Remove the muffins from the pan and let them cool before enjoying.
SAM’S TIP: (Carefully) remove your chocolate chip muffins from the pan within 5-10 minutes of them coming out of the oven. If you leave them in their hot pan, the bottoms may become soggy.
Frequently Asked Questions
We’re using a varying temperature technique here, which plays a big role in helping the muffins rise. But another key step is resting your batter. The longer it rests, the thicker it will be, and thicker batter means taller muffins! I recommend letting your batter rest for at least 15 minutes, but if you can let it sit for about an hour or so, you’ll be rewarded with beautifully tall muffin tops!
Yes! They won’t need to bake as long though, so just keep a close eye on them.
Your chocolate chip muffins will stay fresh when stored in an airtight container at room temperature. You can also freeze them!
If you try these, I’d love it if you commented to let me know how they stack up against the 64 million (and counting) other chocolate chip muffin recipes out there!
Let’s bake together! I’ll be walking you through all the steps in my written recipe and video below! If you try this recipe, be sure to tag me on Instagram, and you can also find me on YouTube and Facebook
Bakery-Style Chocolate Chip Muffins
Ingredients
- 4 Tablespoons (57 g) unsalted butter melted and cooled at least 5 minutes
- ¼ cup (60 ml) avocado oil or vegetable oil or canola oil may substitute vegetable oil
- 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
- 1 large egg + 1 egg white room temperature preferred
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ cup buttermilk room temperature preferred
- 1 ¾ cup (220 g) all-purpose flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 2 teaspoons corn starch
- ½ teaspoon table salt
- 1 cup (175 g) chocolate chips I used a mix of mini and regular sized, but you can use either or a combination
- ⅓ cup (67 g) additional granulated sugar, coarse sugar preferred for topping
Recommended Equipment
- 6-count Jumbo Muffin Tin (see note for making 12 muffins)
Instructions
- Combine butter, oil, and sugar in a large bowl and whisk together.4 Tablespoons (57 g) unsalted butter, ¼ cup (60 ml) avocado oil or vegetable oil or canola oil, 1 cup (200 g) granulated sugar
- Add egg, egg white, and vanilla extract. Whisk together thoroughly, until all ingredients are well-combined, then stir in buttermilk until combined.1 large egg + 1 egg white, 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract, ½ cup buttermilk
- In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, corn starch, and salt.1 ¾ cup (220 g) all-purpose flour, 2 teaspoons baking powder, 2 teaspoons corn starch, ½ teaspoon table salt
- Fold dry ingredients into wet gently, taking care not to overmix. Once about half of the dry ingredients have been incorporated into the batter, add in chocolate chips and continue to fold in to batter until all ingredients are just combined.1 cup (175 g) chocolate chips
- Cover bowl with a dry towel and allow batter to sit while your oven preheats (see note).
- Preheat oven to 425F (215C) and line a 6-count jumbo muffin tin with paper liners.
- Once your oven has preheated (maybe give it a few extra minutes or check your oven thermometer, my oven often says it's reached temperature when it really hasn't yet!), portion batter into prepared muffin tin, filling each tin all the way to the top with batter (without overflowing).
- Sprinkle tops generously with additional sugar and place muffin tin in preheated oven.⅓ cup (67 g) additional granulated sugar, coarse sugar preferred
- Bake on 425F (218C) for 8 minutes and then, without opening the oven door, reduce the oven temperature to 350F (175C) and bake another 15 minutes, or until tops are just beginning to turn golden brown Note: if you are using a standard 12-count muffin tin rather than jumbo-sized, they will not need to bake as long, check your muffins after 7-8 minutes on 350F (177C)).
- Allow muffins to cool in the muffin tin for 5-10 minutes then carefully remove from muffin tin and enjoy!
Notes
Allowing the muffin batter to sit
This step is optional, but it helps the batter thicken and ultimately results in taller muffin tops. Allowing the batter to sit for up to 60 minutes also works and will yield even taller tops.Storing
Store leftover muffins in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 2 days. Baked muffins may also be cooled and then frozen in an airtight container for several months.Nutrition
Nutritional information is based on third-party calculations and should be considered an estimate only. Actual nutritional content will vary based upon brands used, measuring methods, cooking method, portion sizes, and more.
Melissa
I am going to make these to donate to a Ladies Good Friday breakfast. Thanks for sharing.
Jackie
Now these are my favorite. I could have had them all but I shared. I’ve never made such good muffins
Donna
Amazing! I just made these and they are exactly what I’ve been looking for! Soft in the inside and crunchy on the out side. This is a keeper!! Thank you for sharing your recipe!
Sam
This makes me so happy to hear! Glad you loved the recipe as much as I do, Donna! 🙂
Laura
I’m going to try adding banana. We have dried banana so I’ll blitz it into a powder and sub out some flour maybe some liquid I’ll sub out for real banana. Hope it works I love banana chocolate chip muffins.
Sam
That sounds amazing, Laura! I’d love to know how it turns out, I have plans for a banana chocolate chip muffin in the future so I’d love to hear how yours goes 🙂
Annette
I recently discovered your blog and have quite a list of items I’d like to try. I made these muffins last night and love, love, love them! I have new ovens and am still figuring them out but these turned out perfect. Definitely staying in the rotation of baked goods.
Rosa
I did! I have a VERY old oven and I struggle with it. If you turn the temp up over 375 or so, it just turns off. I couldn’t get the muffins to turn a nice golden color, but they were very good! I used only half of the chocolate chips and added a 1/2 cup of pecan halves. Delicious!! 🙂
Rosa
Hi Samantha, I just put a batch in the oven…will keep you posted. 😉
Sam
Hi Rosa, I hope you loved them! 🙂
Hope
I made these muffins last weekend and again this weekend. They are SO good! This time I added 1/3 cup dark chocolate chips (regular size), 1/3 cup peanut butter chips, 1/3 cup of mini chocolate chips, and they turned out so well! I love these and will definitely continue to make them. They are the perfect combination of moist inside and crunchy on top. I just made regular size muffins, so I baked them at 425 for 7 minutes and 350 for 11 minutes and that worked really well :). Thanks so much for sharing this recipe!
Sam
LOVE the addition of the dark chocolate (my favorite) and peanut butter chips! That sounds amazing, Hope! Thank you so much for commenting, I’m glad you enjoyed the muffins! 🙂
Cassandra
I just discovered your recipe on Friday and I’ve already made a batch…TWICE. These came out absolutely perfect. I don’t have a jumbo muffin pan so I did twelve regular size muffins, 8 minutes on the higher temperature, and about 12 on the lower (my oven is wonky), and they came out wonderful crunchy on the outside, moist on the inside.
My husband really enjoyed them and was comparing them to a muffin Starbucks had forever ago – a banana chocolate chip blend. I’m not super adept at creating recipes but I do know that adding banana would alter the moisture content of these – do you know how I would go about altering it to add in banana?
Jennifer
Hi, these seemed to be the exact kind of muffin that I wanted to make. I followed the recipe exactly. I did make them in a 12 muffin pan, and let the batter sit for 15 min before baking. The problem is they completely spread out over the top and sank in the middle. I live in high altitude so I’m thinking that could have affected it, but I’ve made many other muffin recipes that are not tailored to high altitude and they never sank, always rose nicely. What went wrong?
Sam
Hi Jennifer, if it wasn’t the altitude I’d ask if it’s possible if the leaveners were bad, if the muffin cups were overfilled (this is my worst offender) or if the batter was over-mixed. Do any of these seem likely? I’m going to be making them again this week so I’ll see if I notice anything else that could go wrong to cause this.
Ash
You have sugar (I’m guessing you mean granulated sugar?) listed twice, listed as 1 cup and 1/3 cup. Is the 1 cup for the batter and 1/3 for sprinkling on top? I just wanted to check before I tried this out! Your recipes are always the best!!
Sam
Hi Ash! Yes, the 1/3 cup is separate for sprinkling on top. Once I get back to my home computer I’ll update that to make it clearer. I hope you love the muffins! Happy thanksgiving! 🙂
Lisa
Made these regular size because I don’t have a jumbo muffin pan. I did 7 minutes on the higher temperature and 11 on the lower temperature. They came out perfect! Will be keeping this recipe.
Sam
So glad you enjoyed them, Lisa! 🙂
Lori | The Kitchen Whisperer
Oh dear sweet muffin heaven! Those look positively beautious and droolworthy! And noooooooooooow I need these in my life!
I was like you when it came to low profile muffins for the longest time. Honestly it took me a bit to finally sit down, write it out in a process flow, analyze the factors (inputs/outputs) and once I saw it on the paper it kind of clicked. It’s the dual engineer nerd in me LOL
And great tip about the parchment paper muffin liners too! Thanks again for giving me the shout out; I really appreciate it!
Best Kitchen Wishes!
Sam
Thank YOU for your amazing tips! Thanks so much for commenting, Lori, I really appreciate the hard work you put into that post 🙂
Sues
I definitely trust you and have pinned these to make next time I’m craving chocolate chip muffins (which to be honest, will probably be soon!). These look like perfection!!
Sam
Thank you so much, Sues! I hope you love them 🙂
Mikaru86
Those look amazing. A great excuse to dig out my muffin pans again after not using them for a while. I noticed you using what looks to be parchment paper as muffing liners in a few of your recipes (including this one). Any tips on cutting the pieces and folding them to prevent them from jumping out of the pan? This is the issue I had previously when trying to use this.
Sam
I definitely would love your feedback if you try them out! What I did here was cut the parchment paper into squares and then place the center on the bottom of a soda can (you’ll need a smaller can if you’re using a regular sized muffin tin. I usually have the side with the curl from the parchment paper roll facing towards me, it keeps the edges from curling into each other when I’m trying to portion the batter). I press the paper down and make hard creases down the sides in the parchment paper and use the back of my thumbnail to emphasize the creases on the sides and around the bottom of the soda can. They don’t sit as neatly in the muffin tin as storebought liners but they sit well enough that I can use an ice cream scoop to portion batter into the liners without making a mess, does that make sense?
Mikaru86
That makes perfect sense. Thanks, I’ll have to try that out when I make these 🙂
Laura Watson
I love the pretty lil details in baking So I actually had the same question as Mikaru86. What is the size of the parchment paper you use? Is it reg. white parchment and it darkens as it bakes? Cant wait to try these muffins out! They look too pretty too eat! Adoring your website. 🙂
Sam
The parchment paper that i buy is actually already brown (though sometimes I do use white, too, but these started out brown). I just flatten a cupcake liner and then cut a square around it in the parchment paper to get the size just right. White parchment would work just fine, too, but the brand that I use is called “If You Care” and it looks like it’s an environmentally friendly unbleached paper.
I hope that helps but let me know if you have any other questions!
Kerry
I found some already made up on Amazon under CiboWares baking cups , they are red and are called tulip