These bakery-style vegan chocolate muffins are moist and decadent with a gorgeous domed top and heaps of chocolate chips and chocolate chunks!
These vegan chocolate muffins are double chocolate and bakery style to the max!
They are basically designed to be the most decadent and delicious chocolate muffins ever. There is so much chocolate involved here that you could even call them triple chocolate if you wanted to.
There is cocoa powder plus a mix of chocolate chips and chocolate chunks. My thought process is: cocoa powder alone equals single chocolate; add chocolate chips and chunks and then we have double chocolate.
But if you want to count the chocolate chips and chocolate chunks separately, well then you have some triple chocolate vegan muffins on your hands.
So if you’re a chocoholic this is going to be your new favorite recipe for sure. You’ll also love our vegan carrot muffins and our vegan bran muffins.
How to Make Vegan Chocolate Muffins
You will find full instructions and measurements in the recipe card at the bottom of the post. This is a summary of the process to go along with the process photos.
- Sift all purpose flour and cocoa powder into a mixing bowl and add brown sugar, baking soda, salt and some instant coffee powder.
- Make a cup of vegan buttermilk by adding some lemon juice to a measuring jug and then adding soy milk up to the one cup line. Let it curdle.
- Add the vegan buttermilk, vanilla extract, melted coconut oil, applesauce and vinegar to the mixing bowl.
- Mix into a thick batter.
- Add in the chocolate chips and chocolate chunks.
- Fold them into the batter.
- Divide the batter evenly between the muffin partitions. Add more chocolate chips and chunks to the top of the muffins.
- Bake for 25 minutes at 350°F.
- Remove the muffins from the muffin tray and place onto a wire cooling rack to cool.
Ingredient Notes
The key to making the best vegan chocolate muffins is a nice thick batter. The batter needs to be thick so that your chocolate chips and chunks are evenly spread throughout the muffins and don’t just sink straight to the bottom.
Vegan buttermilk not only helps in creating a thick muffin batter but it also creates wonderful moisture and a really tender crumb.
I prefer using soy milk for making vegan buttermilk as it creates a much thicker buttermilk, but you can also use almond milk if you can’t use soy.
Coconut oil also helps to keep this batter thick. It goes in as melted coconut oil but as you stir it into the batter you will notice the batter thickening up more as you stir. This is great.
Brown sugar creates wonderful flavor and moisture but it can be substituted for white sugar or any granulated sugar that you have on hand without too much of an impact.
The instant coffee is added in to really bring out more chocolate flavor, but can be omitted if you prefer.
Vinegar reacts with baking soda to create extra lift in these muffins and contributes to the lovely domed top!
Chocolate chips and chocolate chunks! Do I need to even say more? Well, you don’t have to use a mix, you can use one or the other, but I loved the mix of the two because my chocolate chunks were bigger and fatter than the chocolate chips and also different in flavor and color so it really worked great.
For chunks, just chop up your favorite vegan chocolate bar into chunks.
Double Chocolate Muffins Q&A
Can you make these muffins gluten-free? I have not tested these as gluten-free, but if I was going to try and make these gluten-free the first thing I would do is switch out the flour for a gluten-free all purpose flour blend. It must be a blend, do not try it with a single type of flour like almond or coconut. Try the recipe with just the simple switch of flours and see how it turns out before making any other changes.
What can be used instead of applesauce? The applesauce creates moisture in this recipe and also functions as an egg replacer of sorts. You could use mashed bananas in its place but that might result in a little banana flavor whereas applesauce is neutral.
You can also try it with a flax egg in place of the applesauce if you happen to have some flaxseed meal on hand and no applesauce, but the best result for this recipe is going to be as written.
Storing and Freezing
Keep them covered at room temperature where they will stay fresh for a few days or covered in the fridge where they will stay fresh for up to a week.
They can be frozen for up to 3 months. When you want them, let them thaw overnight in the fridge then bring them to room temperature on the counter, or microwave them briefly to make them nice and warm.
More Vegan Muffins
- Vegan Blueberry Muffins
- Vegan Chocolate Chip Muffins
- Vegan Pumpkin Muffins
- Vegan Zucchini Muffins
- Vegan Banana Muffins
- Vegan Blackberry Muffins
Did you make this recipe? Be sure to leave a comment and rating below!
Vegan Chocolate Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 ¾ cups All Purpose Flour (220g)
- ½ cup Cocoa Powder (42g) Unsweetened
- 1 cup Light Brown Sugar (200g)
- 1 teaspoon Baking Soda
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- 2 teaspoons Instant Coffee Powder
- 1 cup Vegan Buttermilk (240ml) 1 Tablespoon lemon juice + soy milk up to the 1 cup line
- 2 teaspoons Vanilla Extract
- ⅓ cup Coconut Oil (80ml) Melted
- ¼ cup Applesauce (60ml)
- 1 Tablespoon Distilled White Vinegar or Apple Cider Vinegar
- 1 cup Vegan Chocolate Chips and Chunks (175g) plus more to place on top.
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F (180°C) and spray a muffin tray with non-stick spray. Set aside.
- Sift the flour and cocoa powder into a mixing bowl and add the brown sugar, baking soda, salt and instant coffee powder.
- Prepare the vegan buttermilk by adding 1 Tbsp lemon juice to a measuring jug and then adding soy milk up to the 1 cup (240ml) line. Allow it to curdle. Add to the mixing bowl.
- Add in the vanilla, melted coconut oil, applesauce and vinegar and stir into a thick batter.
- Add in the chocolate chips and chunks and fold in.
- Divide the batter evenly between the muffin partitions and then add a few more chocolate chips and chunks to the tops of the muffins.
- Bake for 25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the center of one of the muffins comes out clean (melted chocolate is fine but wet batter is not).
- Transfer to a wire cooling rack and allow to cool and then enjoy!
Video
Notes
- Weigh your flour for the most accurate results or make sure to measure it correctly using the spoon and level method. Spoon it into a measuring cup and then level off the top with a knife.
- You can use either chocolate chips or chunks but I liked using a mix because as you can see from the photos, you have the different colors and textures of the two different types of chocolate. For chunks just chop up a bar of your favorite chocolate. If you are going to do half/half like I did, then use 88g chocolate chips and 88g chocolate chunks.
- This recipe was first published in January 2019.
These always turn out perfectly, a big hit with my grandchildren!
Happy to hear Rebecca!
WOW I can’t believe how delicious these are! This recipe truly exceeded my expectations. I am an avid baker, not vegan and do not usually bake vegan recipes but I wanted to try these out for a friend. I actually made a batch of regular muffins, and then these, and ended up liking the vegan ones more which is insane!
I used high quality lindt premium dark vegan chocolate, and didn’t have applesauce on hand so I cooked one 60g apple in chunks until tender and then fork mashed.
Perfection! They rised very well too and were sooo moist, I’ll be making these instead of normal ones in the future for sure!
Awesome! Thanks so much for sharing and for your great review!
Hi Alison, I’m a big fan of your recipes! Lately I’ve been having a little trouble while using a gf flour blend with the cakes and specially the cupcakes/muffins. I replace it 1:1 but they tend to sink during baking (without opening the oven door). I’ve read somewhere that it might be too much moisture in the mix, have you had this issue? I always use a scale and mix gently to not overmix, already checked the oven temperature etc.. it only happens with the gf versions so I’m really bugged haha
Hi Lidia, I’m really not sure! This particular recipe I haven’t tested as gluten free, but in general I’m not sure what would be causing that. I would be inclined to try a different baking blend.
AMAZING! This recipe is sooo delicious! However, I gave this recipe 4 stars because this recipe doesn’t have salt, so it’s a little bland. But otherwise, ITS SO DELICIOUS!
Hi Pearl, it does have salt! So I think you must have just missed that. Glad you enjoyed them though!
Absolutely delicious, and a fool proof recipe Alison. Ive just discovered your site and it’s my new favourite, I’ll be making lots of your recipes. BTW, the 12 muffins lasted precisely 20 minutes in my house! Xx
Thanks so much Gill! So happy you loved them!
So yummy!!! I made them mini muffins (bake for 13 minutes at 350F). Half the recipe came out to 22 mini muffins. Also I didn’t have any apple sauce on hand so I swapped it out for bobs red mill egg replacer and they came out perfect.
So glad they were a success Emily! Thanks so much for sharing!
Thanks for this recipe! Easy and delicious 🙂
You’re welcome! So glad you enjoyed it!
OMG these are the best muffins I’ve ever made! Absolutely delicious, I can’t stop eating them!
Yay! Thanks so much Cathy!
Very chocolatey and rich so be prepared! I did use a gluten free flour mix in place of the flour and I didn’t have lemon so subbed white vinegar in the soy milk and then forgot to add the other tablespoon of vinegar and they’re still very good. I will probably make them again!
Wonderful! Thanks so much for sharing Debra!
I make these very often but I want to make them for my sister who’s gluten free. What flour do I use?
It should be a gluten free blend that is meant to replace all purpose flour in baking.
Hey! Can I sub the coco oil with light olive oil or avocado oil? Thanks
Sure!
Could I use olive oil instead of coconut oil?
Sure!
So delicious looked and tasted as good as shop bought. I didn’t have enough light brown sugar so used caster sugar instead but came out perfect. I love your recipes 😍
Awesome! Thanks so much Lindsey!
Yummy everyone loved them
Awesome! Thanks for sharing Sandra!