The difference between muffins and cupcakes is the same as the difference between cakes and bread.

1- Ingredients: Almost the same, but muffins have a lower fat and sugar content.

In muffins, butter can be replaced with any vegetable oil, unlike cupcakes, which are best made with butter.

As for the flour, it’s best to use low-protein flour or cake flour for cupcakes, unlike muffins, which are best made with butter.

Most types of flour work with them.

2- Mixture Texture: Muffins: Heavy and lumpy.

Cupcakes: Liquid or creamy, without lumps.

3- Appearance: Muffins: Heavy, with a dry, cracked surface and a very high, dome-like appearance.

Cake: Light and smooth, with a slightly raised surface.

4- Presentation: Cupcakes: Often served topped with frosting and as a dessert.

Muffins: They can be served sweet or savory, such as cheddar cheese muffins or spinach and corn muffins, etc.

Whether sweet or savory, muffins are perfect for any time, especially for breakfast with a cup of tea or coffee.

The simple baking tricks for the BEST Chocolate Muffins ever!

Here’s the complete list of the simple tricks that make all the difference in this recipe. An explanation of the why behind each of these is in the ingredients section below.

• Brown sugar instead of white sugar
• Oil instead of butter
• Coffee to enhance chocolate flavor (optional)
• Sour cream instead of milk
• 1 egg rather than the usual 2 eggs
• Dutch-process cocoa powder for more intense chocolate flavor (optional)
• Thinner batter than the usual muffin batters
• Briefly bake on a high temperature then lower temperature to finish!

Ingredients in Chocolate Muffins

Indulge in a Decadent Chocolat Muffin

Instant coffee powder or granules – This is an age-old baking trick used to enhance chocolate flavours because chocolate and coffee share similar taste characteristics. You can taste the coffee in the raw batter but once baked, you cannot taste it. Any instant coffee powder or granules works fine here, no need to use an expensive one!

HOT milk – A trick used in my Chocolate Cake and Fudge Cake, hot liquid (usually water) mixed with cocoa powder makes it bloom! This brings out the flavour and makes the muffins taste more chocolatey.

Oil – This is the fat used in the chocolate muffins instead of the usual butter. While I love the flavour butter brings to baked goods, it actually has a drying effect on the crumb compared to oil. My side by side tests confirmed this also for this muffin recipe. So, oil it is!

As for making the dome crisp? I wasn’t willing to give that up! So I just blast the muffins at a slightly higher temperature for the first 5 minutes which helps give it a nice crispy dome. Now we get the best of both worlds!

Brown sugar – While white sugar will make a slightly crisper dome, brown sugar retains moisture better which means the crumb is more moist . It also adds a lovely caramel flavour to the crumb which compliments the chocolate flavour.

Vanilla – Just a touch, for flavour! Vanilla extract is fine to use here and is preferable to artificial vanilla flavouring. While real vanilla beans or vanilla bean paste has its place, I wouldn’t bother wasting them for this recipe.

Chocolate chips – I use dark chocolate chips (called semi-sweet chips in the US) but any type of chocolate chips will work just fine here. Or chopped chocolate! Just be sure to use baking chocolate (from the baking aisle), not eating chocolate. The latter is not made for cooking in the oven and funky things happen when you do!

Flour – Just plain / all-purpose flour. Self raising flour does work in place of using plain flour + baking soda as done here, but the muffins don’t rise quite as well. (I’d still use self raising flour if that’s all I had, though.)

Yogurt can also be used in place of sour cream.

Salt – Just a touch, it brings out the flavour in baked goods. Standard practice!

Sour cream – Another baking trick! This lets us introduce wetness in the batter but keeps the batter a thicker consistency than using, say, more milk. We need a thicker batter for chocolate muffins than for, say, cupcakes, in order to achieve that lovely dome.

Baking soda (bi-carb) – This makes the muffins rise slightly better than using baking powder, while preserving the intense dark chocolate colour of the crumb. Baking powder does also work perfectly fine (use 4 teaspoons) but the muffins rise slightly less and give a slightly paler crumb colour.

Ordinary cocoa powder (unsweetened) will work just fine too. The colour of the muffins however will not be quite as deep and also it will taste slightly less chocolatey.

Just 1 egg – Eggs are required to bind the crumb of cakes. But the problem is the whites tend to also dry baked goods out! So we use just 1 egg here. Compared to using 2 eggs, the extra moistness in the crumb is remarkable.

How to make Chocolate Muffins

Sift Dry ingredients – Sift flour, baking soda and salt into a large bowl. I don’t typically bother sifting flour for muffins, but seeing as we’re sifting cocoa anyway, I figure we may as well. Using the same sifter for the cocoa without cleaning the flour off is fine.

Sift cocoa powder into a separate bowl.

Bloom cocoa – Add the coffee powder and hot milk to the cocoa and give it a good whisk. This step of adding a hot liquid (usually boiling water) to cocoa powder makes the cocoa “bloom”, bringing out its flavour. It’s an age-old baking trick, one I use for things like Chocolate Cake and my Fudge Cake.

Finish batter – Whisk in remaining wet ingredients (oil, sour cream, vanilla, egg, sugar – yes, sugar is classified as a “wet” ingredient in baking!) with the cocoa.

Then pour this mixture into the flour and whisk. Initially, after the flour is incorporated, the batter will look a bit split (ie. it’ll have fine oil streaks). Whisk until it’s smooth and glossy, but stop once it is. Don’t keep mixing on blindly! This will overwork the gluten in the flour and make your muffins tough rather than pillowy soft! That said, this batter is thinner than most muffins batters so it’s more failsafe in this regard.

Stir in most of the chocolate chips – reserved about 1/4 cup for topping.

Note: This batter is THINNER than typical muffin batters. This is one reason why these cupcakes have a much more tender and moist crumb than the usual chocolate muffins.

Fill muffin cases. Use an ice cream scoop with a lever if you have one. This is a super-handy tool for muffins, cupcakes, fritters, even meatballs!

Do not overfill! Fill the muffin cases up to 0.5cm / 0.2″ from rim of paper liner. Don’t fill any higher as the muffin will overflow when baked since this batter is quite thin. (see Note 5)

Top with reserved chocolate chips. Just pile them in the middle, they will spread out as the muffin rises.

Bake at HIGH temp 5 minutes – Bake for 5 minutes at 210°C / 410°F (190°C fan). Starting off at a slightly higher temperature gives the muffins a kick start on the rise (required for this thinner batter) and gives the muffins a crunchier top.

Bake at LOW temp 20 minutes – Turn oven DOWN to 190°C / 375°F (170°C fan) then bake further 20 minutes. So, 25 minutes in total. This is longer than most muffins and it’s because the batter is thinner (contains more liquid).

Notes on oven temperature: I know these oven temperatures are a bit unusual compared to the typical 180°C/350°F. I tried baking these at all sorts of temperatures and I honestly think the temperatures I’ve landed on yield the best result. The muffins have a nice rise, crisp dome, moist crumb inside, without overcooked edges.

How to tell the muffins are baked: Start checking the muffins at the 15 min mark on the low temp bake. When a toothpick inserted into the middle muffins comes out clean, they’re done. Don’t confuse melted chocolate with raw batter! Probe in multiple places if you are unsure. (PS. The slightest faint smear of batter on the toothpick is ok because residual heat will take care of any remaining rawness).

Cool for a few minutes in the muffin tin until you can handle them. The muffins are quite fragile straight out of the oven because they are so tender inside, so handle with care.

Transfer to a cooling rack, and allow to cool for at least 15 minutes before attacking them!