Vegan Double Chocolate Chip Muffins (Gluten Free and Sugar Free options)

Deliciously rich, moist, and chocolatey, these vegan double chocolate chip muffins are the perfect combination of the fluffiness of a muffin mixed with the dense luxury of a chocolate cake.  Plus if you like chocolate for breakfast, and muffins for dessert, then you can eat two of these per day!

Does anyone remember those old Bagel Bites commercials that had the jingle “Pizza in the morning, pizza in the evening, pizza at supper time..”?  First of all, I fully agree with the sentiment of that musical masterpiece.  But more important to this recipe, I feel you can replace the word “pizza” with the word “chocolate” and we’ve got ourselves a new national anthem.

I appreciate breakfast granola bars that have those little mini chocolate chips in them, it’s a nice way to tease me into thinking I’m getting chocolate for breakfast.  But that is child’s play.  If you are going for a chocolatey breakfast treat, go all the way!  These muffins are a double (or triple) hit of chocolate – cocoa powder in the muffin batter, then I like to add dark chocolate chips AND semi-sweet chocolate chunks into the batter and over the top as well.  If you’re starting to feel like these won’t work for your first meal of the day, let me also say they are made with coconut oil, applesauce, and as with many of my baked goods, can be made sugar-free by using Monkfruit sweetener instead of sugar (more on that below).

So, have I convinced you to make these vegan double chocolate chip muffins?  Were you already convinced since you clicked on this page to begin with?  Either way, let’s get going!

How To Make Them

This recipe has only two tiny steps to do first, then it’s pretty much “mix the wet stuff” and “mix the dry stuff”.

First – melt the coconut oil.  Big reminder here – you want to measure it AFTER it has melted!  And you want to use a liquid measuring cup!  Aka, don’t just use a ½ cup measuring cup and scoop some oil from the jar, melt it in a bowl, and assume you’re good.  I do this step first so it can come to room temperature while I prepare everything else.

Second – make the vegan buttermilk.  Haven’t done this before?  It’s so easy!  Basically you use non-dairy milk and mix it with a bit of apple cider vinegar, white vinegar, or lemon juice, and let it sit for a few minutes to curdle.  This gives it a thicker texture and keeps the end result extra moist and well formed.  I like to use soy milk when the recipe calls for heavy mix-ins, like chocolate chips or nuts or fruit.  Soy curdles better and is thicker, so it helps keep everything suspended instead of the chips sinking to the bottom.  But I promise if you don’t have soy on hand, any non-dairy milk will do here.

While the buttermilk is setting and the coconut oil is cooling, mix up the gluten free flour, unsweetened cocoa powder, salt, and baking powder in a large bowl.  I recommend sifting the cocoa powder if yours has lumps, as many do.  I use a wildly simple sifter, but feel free to be fancier than I am!

In a separate bowl, whisk together the vegan buttermilk, melted coconut oil, applesauce, and vanilla extract.  Once combined, add in the sugar (see the Ingredients Needed section to learn how to make these sugar free!) and whisk again.  Then, add the dry ingredients and fully combine.  You may notice your batter has sort of a chocolate mousse texture to it – that’s correct!  Compare against this photo below if needed.  It’s a bit differently textured than if you have made blueberry muffins or something like that in the past.  This is okay, and also delicious to try on a spoon.  But I digress..

Finally, add in the chips/chunks if you are using them and mix evenly throughout the batter.  As mentioned above, I like to do half dark chocolate chips and half semi-sweet chocolate chunks, as I think it’s the best combination of flavor and texture.  I have found doing about 2/3 cup of each gives the best ratio of chocolate bursts in each bite, but still getting the beauty of the muffin without it just being overwhelmed by melted chocolate chips.  You can certainly do less than this, but I wouldn’t suggest doing too much more.  Also I like to sprinkle some extra chocolate on top, as well as some coarse sugar.  

Evenly distribute the batter into 12 lined tins in a muffin pan, and put into the oven at 375 for 21-24 minutes (I find my sweet spot is exactly 22).  When the pan comes out put it right onto a cooling rack to let the muffins firm up for about 5-10 minutes, then remove from the pan to either keep cooling on the cooling rack, or eat them all immediately while still warm, I ain’t judging.

And that’s it! Time to eat your delicious vegan double chocolate chip muffins!

Nutritional info can be found below in the Notes section below the recipe instructions.

Storage:

Here’s the thing about muffins, especially vegan and gluten free ones – they lose their quality pretty quickly. If you are eating them all immediately, for which I do NOT judge you, then they will be fantastic. But if you want to enjoy them for more than a day or two, I’d recommend letting them cool, then within the day wrapping them in something air tight and freezing them. Saran wrap or a tupperware or a Ziploc bag. This way when the muffin craving hits, you just defrost one and it’s (nearly) as good as new!.

Pro tips and tools:

• Make sure you are measuring your flour either by weight or using the spoon and level method.  Do not scoop directly from the container, as you will wind up with too much! This is so important! If you want to buy a pre-made gluten free flour blend, make sure it’s King Arthur’s Measure for Measure Gluten Free Flour, it is BY FAR the best one for my recipes, NOT Bob’s Red Mills or any others. If you want to make a homemade blend, here is a link to the one I use.
• Make sure you measure your liquid ingredients using liquid measuring cups.  This will ensure accuracy!  I love this set.
• Missing any of the basics? Here is my go-to muffin tin, and my go-to cupcake liners.

Ingredients needed:

• Non-dairy milk – as mentioned above, soy works best here, but if you don’t have soy on hand I promise any other non-dairy milk will be great
• Vinegar – apple cider vinegar, white vinegar, or lemon juice to curdle the non-dairy milk.
• Coconut oil
• Unsweetened applesauce
• Vanilla extract
• Granulated sugar – If you want to make these sugar free, I love using this Monkfruit Sweetener in place of granulated sugar.
• Flour – Make sure you are measuring your flour either by weight or using the spoon and level method.  Do not scoop directly from the container, as you will wind up with too much! This is so important! If you want to buy a pre-made gluten free flour blend, make sure it’s King Arthur’s Measure for Measure Gluten Free Flour, it is BY FAR the best one for my recipes, NOT Bob’s Red Mills or any others. If you want to make a homemade blend, here is a link to the one I use.
• Unsweetened cocoa powder
• Baking powder – I recommend using baking powder that has no added aluminum. This one is my go-to.
• Salt
• Chocolate chips and/or chocolate chunks – as mentioned above, I use half dark chocolate chips and half semi-sweet chocolate chunks, as I think it’s the best combination of flavor and texture.
• Coarse sugar – optional, for sprinkling on top. I use this kind.

What To Bake Next:

• Want more breakfast muffins? Try these Vegan Blueberry Muffins, or these Vegan Peanut Butter Banana Muffins, or these Vegan Lemon Poppyseed Muffins, or these Healthy Flourless & Refined Sugar Free Chocolate Chip Mini-Muffins.
• Want more chocolate for breakfast? Try these Vegan & Baked Copycat Entenmann’s Donuts, or these Fluffy Vegan Banana Pancakes and add chocolate chips to them.
• Want more CHOCOLATE ON CHOCOLATE? Try this Vegan Triple Chocolate Cake, or these Vegan Fudgy Brownies, or these Vegan Copycat Thin Mint Cookies, or this Vegan Chocolate Cake with Salted Caramel Frosting.