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.
Jen G
Made these a few days ago. The flavor was good, but the muffins were really dense- they weren’t over-mixed. I might try this again with cake flour instead. All the ingredients are so heavy, I’m not surprised at the result. Your carrot cake cupcakes and cream cheese frosting are still my favorite recipes of yours.!
Jazzy
Ok, I’m eating them now and they are delicious. The millet flour made them dense but I still think it’s a really good gluten free option. Somehow I missed one of the things in your instructions on the buttermilk substitute. I think a lot of people have problems following instructions. I think that’s how you have one recipe with a million different results lol 😆. Anyway, they are really good and wanted to let you know.
Also something you do that I love is that you include the ingredients in the steps. that is super helpful because we don’t have to go back and scroll to the top to view the ingredient list a bunch of times. I love how helpful that is.
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
We’re so happy you enjoyed them, Jazzy! 🥰
Ionela
Just ok. Too sweet. 1/2cup sugar will be more than enough, and less chocolate too….
Angie
Thank you for such an easy to follow recipe. That yielded delicious chocolate chip muffins. I will continue to use this recipe as rough as the muffins tasted great and looked great.
Sabrina Popat
So So good! I hate that I have to share 🤩
Stella
it feels wiered to put the oil it made it so oily!
Sam
Hi Stella! I’m confused what happened here? Were the liners oily? Were the muffins oily after baking?
azure
they weren’t very flavorful, and didn’t look like the picture. not my favorite.
Sam
Hmm that’s disappointing to hear. Did you make any substitutions or alterations?
Cindy
Hi Sam,
I’ve tried your recipe and it turns out so delicious!
However, my boys are pestering me to make double chocolate muffin now.
May I know if I should just replace 25% of my flour to cocoa powder?
Any changes to the liquid?
Sam
Hi Cindy! I actually have a double chocolate muffin that I would recommend. 🙂
anna
hi…1/4 of oil is not 60 ml, it’s more like 30😭 i measured it in a cup measurer but then on the scale it said 30 ml so im afraid all other measurements are off?😭i put less sugar and they came out soooo sweet still, are you sure the conversions are right?? thanks
Sam
Hi Anna! 60ml of oil is 1/4 cup of oil. The ml option on your scale is set to the weight water and oil doesn’t weigh the same as water so the scale isn’t the best way to measure the oil. I personally don’t think the muffins are very sweet, but that is a personal preference. I’m not sure how much you can reduce the sugar before you start having issues with the muffins turning out properly.
Nuzhat
Please advice if we are using a mini muffin tin what will be the oven temperature in that case? Thank you!
Sam
They would just need to bake at 350 for probably around 11-13 minutes.
Susan
I made this on the weekend. Best Choc Chip muffins ever.
Whitney
These turned out beautifully! I followed the recipe down to the tea and didn’t make any substitutions. I did noticed that for some reason I ended up with enough batter to make 12 muffins! The more the merrier! Not sure why I had this much batter but I did regular sized muffins with a 1/4 scoop. They rose beautifully but the only thing I noticed is that they weren’t as moist as I was hoping for. Next time I will try stirring even less and see what the difference is. Thank you Sam!
Emily @ Sugar Spun Run
Hi Whitney! Did you reduce the baking time? If you make regular sized muffins, the time will be less. We discuss this in detail in the recipe notes. This could be the cause of the drier result. Hope that helps! 😊
Shannon
These were great! I added a scoop of vanilla protein powder to them. It did make them a little thicker but were still great- and a little less guilty with a tiny bit of nutrition.
Sarah
Hello, Can you make these in a standard muffin tin?
Sam
Hi Sarah! There are instructions in step 9 to bake them as regular muffins. 🙂
Britney Coleman
Any idea of baking instructions for mini muffins? Thanks!
Sam
Hi Britney! They would need to bake at 350 for 11-13 minutes. 🙂
Melissa Llanes
hi could i leave the batter for about 5-6 hours in the fridge before baking? excited to try!
Sam
Hi Melissa! I haven’t tried letting the batter rest that long, but I’m not sure I would recommend it. 🙁
Jazzy
I’m making them this morning for Christmas. I didn’t have any buttermilk so I just user regular milk. I also used millet flour instead for a gluten free option. I hope they still turn out OK. my husband isn’t a chocolate person but I am. I divided half the batter and used some mini chocolate chips I had on hand. The other half of the batter I tried to make banana muffins for my husband. I blended his half of the batter in a blender with two bananas and added some pecans. they are in the oven right now so we will see. Everything looks so delicious. Thanks so much for taking time out to post this recipe. I am excited to try more of your recipes as well. The blueberry cream cheese looks delicious too.
Constance
This is the only recipe I’ll use for chocolate chip muffins because it is that good!!! I went to make a batch this week, only to realize I was out of eggs. But nothing was gonna stop me from getting my muffin fix. I replaced the egg + egg white with a heaping 1/4 cup of sour cream. The muffin texture was fluffier and you’ll need to grease the pan more or use muffin liners.
Lisa
These are a hit every time I make them. I’ve actually started making the batter the night before and let it sit in the fridge overnight. So easy to then bake the next morning and they have been perfect every time.
Sam
Love this, what a great idea! Thank you for sharing, Lisa!