Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Muffins (video)
A crispy, sky-high muffin top, full of chocolate chips, soft and buttery on the inside – a perfect way to start your morning!
I love enjoying a good muffin with a nice, warm cup of coffee, especially now that the fall weather is setting in. My favorite part of a muffin is the muffin top, that’s why I love bakery style muffins. Breaking off that large, crispy muffin top and taking that first bite is heaven to me. When I was a kid, I would only eat the tops of my muffins and it used to drive my mother crazy because she though it was so wasteful. But, the bottom just couldn’t compare to the top. This reminds me of that Seinfeld episode back in the 90’s where Elaine had the idea of a store just selling muffin tops. I know I totally dated myself with the last reference, but I hope some of you know what I’m talking about or else I’m just going to feel old and geeky.
Anyway, let’s talk baking science. The key to the perfect bakery style muffin is to have just enough leavening agents (baking soda and baking powder) to create that puffy dome when baking, but not so much that you can taste it. Baking at an initial high temperature will cause the air bubbles in the batter to expand even further. This will help give the muffin a soft and fluffy texture and also create the high rise. Using enough fats and liquids like butter, eggs, and milk, will make the muffins moist and rich. You also need enough volume of batter to fill the tins to the top. Lastly, and this is a tip in general for making soft and tender muffins, mix the wet with the dry ingredients until JUST combined. Over mixing will result in hockey pucks and you don’t want that. Everything else is a matter of preference in taste.
I used mini chocolate chips for this recipe because they disperse more evenly throughout, but you can use regular chocolate chips or chocolate chunks if you prefer. I also added some salt to enhance all the flavors. I used to shy away from salt, but I learned from watching Master Chef that it’s useful for more than just adding a savory taste, it also potentiates all the other flavors. I added 1 tablespoon of vanilla because I like vanilla in all my baked goods. It’s just one of those flavors that goes well with most things, and of course you need some sugar. I only used 1 cup of sugar for this recipe because the chocolate chips are already sweet. So, in a nutshell, that’s pretty much how I came up with the recipe.
Enjoy these fabulous muffins with your morning coffee and/or as an afternoon snack. They’re moist, fluffy, rich in flavor, loaded with sweet chocolate chips, and they’re so delicious, I promise you’ll want to devour the whole thing, not just the tops.
Bakery Style Chocolate Chip Muffins
- Prep Time: 10 min
- Cook Time: 20 min
- Total Time: 30 minutes
- Yield: 12
- Category: breakfast, snack
- Method: bake
- Cuisine: American
Description
The BEST chocolate chip muffin recipe – soft, moist, fluffy, loaded with chocolate chips, and a perfect crispy sky-high muffin top!
Ingredients
- 2 & ½ cups (315g) all-purpose flour
- 1 tbsp (13g) baking powder
- 1 tsp (5g) baking soda
- ½ tsp (2.5g) salt
- ½ cup (114g) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
- 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 1 cup (250ml) buttermilk (see notes for substitutions*)
- 1 tbsp (15ml) vanilla extract
- 1 & ½ cups (275g) semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 425°F. Spray a 12 cup muffin tray with non-stick cooking spray or line with paper liners.
- In a large bowl, toss together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and chocolate chips. Set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the melted butter, sugar, eggs, milk and vanilla. Slowly add to the dry ingredients. Gently fold together until JUST combined.
- Divide the batter into the 12 muffin cups and bake at 425°F for 5 minutes. Then reduce the oven temperature to 375°F and continue to bake for another 12-15 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Do not overbake or the muffins will be dry. Let cool for about 5-10 minutes and enjoy warm.
Notes
*You can substitute the buttermilk with any kind of milk. Even non-dairy milk like almond or rice milk works. Simply mix it with 1 tablespoon of white vinegar or lemon juice to make 1 cup.
Muffins taste best the day of, but can be stored in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 5 days.
For mini muffins; bake for 10-12 minutes at 375F only.
You might also like my Bakery Style Blueberry Streusel Muffins, Bakery Style Banana Nut Muffins, and Double Chocolate Muffins. Click here to see all muffin recipes.
I made some changes to this recipe to suit my family/kids. First I ran out of chocolate chips so I added mini M&Ms that I had on hand. I also added about 4 tbsp of flax meal (for my one son’s fibre requirement) and I added just under a 1/2 cup total of very finely grated carrot and zucchini (to hide veggies from my other son). I also used 2% milk instead of buttermilk. My mix made 18 delicious, kid approved muffins (with parent’s approval as well).
My wife loves Chocolate Chip Muffins, using your recipe appropriately 4 times and they are delicious. The recipe is simple, easy, and great, when you get SUPER COMMENTS Â cause they are TASTYÂ
Aww, thanks James! So happy to hear that you and your wife love these muffins!
I made these and they are amazing! My adult son is eating them like he is seven years old and says they should be illegal lol
That’s awesome, lol. Thank you to you and your son for the kind words!
I didn’t have a 12 muffin tray, only a 6 muffin tray, so I had to bake it in two batches one after the other, so for the first batch I only filled the tray about 3/4 full with the batter because I didn’t know how much was half the batch lol. Note, it doesn’t rise very much as a whole, it does rise in the middle as you see in the photos though, so fill up the pan with batter to the top as you see in the video. Was delicious! Followed the weight measurements and turned out perfect~ really happy with this recipe, was very minimal clean up and fast too, no need to stand there whipping eggs or the butter and sugar forever. Make sure to cool in the pan for 5 mins before scooping out and placing on rack to cool another 5 minutes. Extra tip, try using sea salt if you can, makes it that much better 🙂 Will use again definitely!
sorry, forgot to rate it 🙂
Perfect & delicious!
So awesome! These muffins turned out perfect. My whole family loved them, and I do too! I will be using this recipe from now on!
These are a win for my family. I made them as muffins the other day and I had tears from my kids when they were gone.
We recently moved to a small town in the middle of nowhere with no restaurants and stores without bakeries. So I ordered donut molds on Amazon and made these “muffins” last night into donuts. My kids loved them and I got so many hugs and you’re the best mom ever comments. Now I need to make more before I get more tears.
Thank you so much for sharing a great recipe.
Oh, I forgot to add, I added cocoa powder to make these chocolate chocolate chip muffins/donuts.
Aww, you’re very welcome and thank you for your kind words! Nothing is better than hearing you’re the best from your kids as a mom. xoxo
I am not a great baker, and have tried making so many various muffin recipes.. these are the best muffins I have EVER made let alone had! I would give them 100 stars if I could. They are super tasty and light..EVERYONE just LOVED THEM!!!
Thank you for your rave review, Alicia! Much appreciated and so happy to hear that everyone loves them:)
These are delicious and so full of chocolate chips! I ended up using coffee cream diluted with a little water instead of milk (my husband drank all the milk and I didn’t know) but they turned out awesome! I just heat them in the microwave for 30 seconds and add some butter! Yum!
Thank you for your kind words, Jen! I do the same when I run out of milk. Great minds think alike!
Hi,
I baked the chocolate muffins. They came out delicious. The only thing that I didn’t like was that a lot of chocolate bits stayed at the bottom of the muffins.
Did I do something wrong ?
Thank you
Hi Joanne, 1 of 2 things might have happened:
-forgetting to toss the chocolate chips in the flour mixture before adding the wet ingredients
-the butter might have been too warm causing the batter to be too thin and chips sinking
I hope this helps and glad it was still delicious:)
This recipe is very useful and could be adjusted because one can add fruits or nuts to their batch. However I would have preferred the recipe to specify that cooking these muffins for a shorter time frame is better! Thank you for this recipe. It is a blessing.
really good im using this for cullinary class
Delicious!!
I made the chocolate chip muffins as stated, and they are excellent. Â
My question is can the high then reduced temperature be used on other muffins to create high crowns?  I only see this chocolate chip muffin recipe with the temperature change.  ThanksÂ
You can, however not all muffin recipes need this method. Thank you for your feedback and enjoy the muffins!
These muffins turned out perfectly! Great recipe. The tops are just a bit crunchy and they are not dry in the least. My baking experiments are often flops but these turned out so good, I had to share. 🙂
So great! I added 3/4 cut peanut butter powder and topped with peanuts.Â
So good…. Chocolate peanut butter muffins!Â
If I only want to make 6 muffins, do I cut all ingredients by half, including the baking powder and baking soda?
Yes and yes, cut all the ingredients in half. Enjoy!
This recipe works wonderfully. I added in matcha powder. The muffin tasted heavenly.
Can you use oil instead of melted butter ?
Yes, you can. Enjoy!
Any tips for baking at high altitude?
Yes, as per another reader:
*Decreased both the baking powder and baking soda by 1/2
*Decreased the sugar by 2 TBS
*Added 1 extra egg
*First, I baked them for 7 minutes instead of 5 at 425. Then reduce to 375F as instructed.
Enjoy!