Better-than-bakery chocolate muffins! These richly chocolate muffins are made entirely from scratch using cocoa powder and chocolate chips. Read on for tips on how to get soft, fluffy muffins every time, and the key ingredients that make this muffin recipe crafted for perfection.
I quit my job this week. 😳
On Monday I turned in my 2-weeks notice to my wonderful, fantastic job of over 4 1/2 years so that I can work full time on Sugar Spun Run. I’m an emotional melting pot of anxiety, excitement, elation and trepidation right now. “But what if the internet explodes?” Zach has rolled his eyes at that question roughly 6 million times so far, but here we are, and as nervous as I seem to be about the stability of the internet, I’m really happy to be here.
I’ll publish a post in the future to go into more detail about how this all came to happen (and so quickly), but for now I just wanted to share that fun bit of news with you, and thank you from the bottom of my heart for following along with my blog (or just clicking over to this recipe from Pinterest or Google, I love that, too, you rock).
But let’s get into what you really came here for — today’s recipe for double chocolate muffins.
These double chocolate muffins are a very welcome recipe for a lazy morning. They’re entirely from scratch, but only take a few seconds to mix together, and the flavor is better than anything you can get out of a pre-packaged pouch.
To attain this perfect texture and flavor, we actually are going to use oil instead of butter here.
As with my chocolate cupcake recipe the cocoa powder and chocolate chips (and other ingredients, more on that below) provide more than enough flavor to stand alone. Because butter actually has a certain percentage of water in it, it actually can dry out our muffins where oil keeps them soft and moist, but sometimes is necessary to use anyway to attain a desirable flavor. Here, we have plenty of other elements contributing to the flavor of the muffins, so we can nix the butter and use oil for fluffy, flavorful muffins, no butter required.
We also use sour cream, which (very subtly) adds to the flavor of the muffins, but more importantly also helps to keep them nice and moist.
As you may be able to tell in the above photos, this chocolate muffin batter isn’t super smooth, it’s a little lumpy, and that’s not just because of the excessive amount of chocolate chips that we’ve stirred into the mix!
It’s because the batter has been mixed just enough, which, in the case of these chocolate muffins (and most muffins) means never, ever over-mixing the batter. Doing so usually results in tough, dense, dry muffins that don’t rise above their muffin liners. Since we’re already topping these muffins off with some fairly heavy chocolate chips, we don’t want to do anything to the batter to keep it from rising.
So, yeah, a few dry lumps in the batter are totally OK here.
Look at that 👆🏼
Perfect muffins, every time.
That’s all for today, but if you’re wondering how/if things are going to change around here now that I’m no longer going to be spending 50 hours a week at my day job, they absolutely are (in a good way!), though a lot of it will be behind-the-scenes at first.
Within the next month or so I’ll be bumping up the number of posts that I’m publishing each week, working on a lot more video, and probably dabbling on Facebook Live. Speaking of which, how do you feel about Facebook Live? Do you ever watch them? What recipe would you like to see made first?! If you’re not already, you can follow me on Facebook here.
Thanks again for reading.
Full recipe just below the video.

Double Chocolate Muffins
Ingredients
- 1/2 cup canola oil vegetable oil would also work 120ml
- 1 cup granulated sugar 200g 200g
- 1/2 cup milk 120ml
- 2 large eggs lightly beaten
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2/3 cup sour cream 150g 150g
- 2 cups all-purpose flour 240g 240g
- 1/2 cup cocoa powder 50g 50g
- 1 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 2 cups semisweet chocolate chips divided (340g) (I use a mix of mini and regular sized chips)
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 375F (190C) and line 18 muffin cups with cupcake liners (or lightly grease and flour).
- In large bowl, whisk together oil, sugar, and milk. Stir in eggs and vanilla until well-combined.
- Gently fold in sour cream until just-combined.
- In separate, medium-sized bowl, whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Fold flour mixture gently into wet mixture, folding until just barely combined. Stir in 1 1/2 cup chocolate chips.
- Scoop chocolate muffin batter into prepared muffin tin, filling 2/3-3/4 of the way full.
- Sprinkle tops of muffins with remaining chocolate chips.
- Bake on 375F (190C) for 18 minutes (toothpick inserted in center should come out with few slightly fudgy crumbs.
Nutrition
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Glo says
How could I halve this recipe? I have an inkling
how to do this but I want to be sure. I have one muffin tin. They sound absolutely delicious and I’m excited to make these.
Sam says
You shouldn’t have any issue cutting this recipe in half. 🙂
Christina says
Super soft fluff delicious muffins!!! I will definitely try these again next time with strawberry or blueberry..
KELLY says
Delicious!! I used Hershey’s special dark cocoa powder as well as dark chocolate chips because that’s what we love and had on hand! Thank you for sharing!! YUM!!!
Sam says
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Kelly! 🙂
Camille says
Can I substitute buttermilk to the sour cream? If so, how much amount is needed? thank you 🙂
Sam says
Hi Camille! I’m not sure because I haven’t tried it. You may need to add a little milk to get the proper consistency as well. Let me know how it goes if you try it.
Aneesha says
Is it unsweetened cocoa powder?
Sam says
Yes use unsweetened here. 🙂
Jaci Kawakami says
This recipe was amazing! I didn’t have enough hot cocoa so I used hot chocolate mix but it still worked out! I recommend eating it a day after you make them because then they are moist and flavorful! I eat 2 with my tea in the morning 😊
Jaci Kawakami says
Ugh I mean unsweetened cocoa 🤦🏾♀️
Sam says
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Jaci! 🙂
Nadia says
I don’t have sour cream what else I can use
Sam says
Hi Nadia! You can use greek yogurt here. 🙂
Amber Penfold says
I used vanilla Greek yogurt and they were amazing!
Sarah says
Hi Sam,
Could I use olive oil in this recipe instead of vegetable?
Sam says
Hi Sarah! Olive oil has a more distinct flavor, so long as you like the taste of olive oil it is fine but just keep in mind the flavor will be a bit different.
Sarah says
Unfortunately I didn’t see this in time so still used the olive oil, but honestly it didn’t even matter – these turned out amazing! This recipe is definitely a keeper, hard trying not demolish these before serving guests!
Happy Thanksgiving – thanks Sam 🙂
Sam says
Wonderful! I’m so happy to hear they were still delicious! Happy Thanksgiving, Sarah!
Emma says
Would it be okay to substitute the sour cream with plain yogurt and baking soda?
Sam says
Hi Emma! I would recommend greek yogurt not just plain yogurt, but you won’t need to add any additional baking soda. 🙂
Michelle says
Do the eggs and sour cream have to be at room temperature, can’t wait to make these with my kids. 😊
Sugar Spun Run says
Hi, Michelle! For the best results, I reccomend that they are room temperature. Room-temperature eggs give much better results than cold eggs. The temperature of eggs will also affect the baking time. You can easily warm the eggs by placing them in a bowl of warm water for a few minutes. As for the sour cream, you will just leave it out for 30 mins or so before baking. Enjoy! 🙂
Sarah says
AMAZING!! Tastes like a decadent chocolate cake. Super moist and fluffy! I highly recommend using Dutch Processed cocoa powder, it really amped up the chocolate flavor.
Sam says
I am so glad you enjoyed them so much, Sarah! 🙂
Michelle says
Hi, can’t wait to try this. They look delicious. Can I freeze the batter?
Sam says
Hi Michelle! I’m not sure how freezing the batter would go, but I know you can freeze the final product. 🙂
D S says
I like these but there is too much baking soda in them. Slight taste of metal.
Sam says
I wonder if your baking soda is bad, or if there were some lumps of baking soda in the batter. They shouldn’t taste metallic.