Better than the bakery Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins! Bursting with sweet banana flavour, speckled with molten dark chocolate chips, with a golden sugared cinnamon crust, these soft and fluffy muffins are simply delicious. Easy-to-make (no-mixer required) and using simple pantry staple ingredients, this banana muffins recipe is the only one you’ll ever need.
Served warm, fresh from the oven, smeared with a little butter – these cosy Banana Chocolate Chips Muffins are seriously delicious. This recipe is super simple to make and perfect for those spotty bananas sitting on the bench. These muffins are the best all thanks to their soft and tender crumb, sparkly cinnamon-sugared crust, mega banana flavour and the molten chocolate chips strewn throughout. Each and every bite is ‘roll your eyes back good’. I’m so excited for you to bake these muffins!
How to make the best Banana Chocolate Chips Muffins
Step One: Begin by preheating oven to 200 C (390 F) and line a muffin tin with 15 papers. Set aside.
Step Two: Place the butter into a small saucepan, cook over medium heat until the butter is melted, foaming and wonderfully brown and smells nutty. Set aside to cool slightly.
Step Three: Place the flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, bicarb soda and salt into a bowl and whisk to combine creating a well in the centre. Set aside.
Step Three: Into a separate bowl place the butter, eggs, yoghurt, vanilla and mashed bananas and whisk to combine.
Step Four: Pour the wet ingredients into the well of the dry and using a wooden spoon stir until just combined. Do not over mix.
Step Five: Gently fold through the chocolate chips.
Step Six: Evenly divide the mixture between the prepared muffin tins.
Step Seven: Place the caster sugar and cinnamon into a small bowl and stir to combine. Sprinkle each muffin with a little cinnamon sugar.
Step Eight: Bake muffins for 15-20 minutes or until golden and when a skewer inserted removes cleanly.
Tips for making the best banana chocolate chip muffins
Use spotty bananas: Overripe, super spotty bananas are essential to making the best banana muffins. As bananas ripen, they intensify in sweetness with the added flavours of vanilla, honey and rum that begs for these darlings to be baked into banana muffins. So the spottier, the better!
Mix wet and dry ingredients separately: Want fluffy and super soft muffins? Wonderful. It’s super simple. Just mix the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet ingredients in another. Pour the wet into the dry then stir a couple of times to roughly combine the muffin batter.
Do not over mix the batter: The golden rule when baking muffins is NOT to over stir the batter. Lumps and bumps are totally OK. You don’t need a super smooth batter.
Line the pan: I almost always use papers to line my muffin tray. They not only make removing the cooked muffins quick and easy, they also keep muffins fresher for longer. If you choose to grease your muffin tin with butter or oil, be sure to grease the base and the side thoroughly.
Dark Chocolate Chips: Bananas have a great affinity for roasted flavours and dark chocolate is one of the best. I use 70% cacao dark chocolate chips. I adore the bitter intensity especially against the sweetness of the bananas. As the muffins bake, the dark chocolate chips melt and become molten pools amongst the tender and perfectly soft banana scented muffin crumb.
Cinnamon Sugar Crust: The best banana muffins have a wonderfully soft, tender, fluffy and moist crumb nestled underneath a gorgeously golden crust. Achieving such a crust is simple to a little cinnamon sugar in your baking arsenal. Simply combine a little sugar and cinnamon and dust the top of each muffin prior to baking. Once nestled in the oven the sugar caramelises on top of the muffin to create a heavenly golden crust.
Yoghurt: Yoghurt gives the muffins a slightly tangy flavour whilst being responsible for creating the most moist and tender muffins. I always find yoghurt (or buttermilk) yields lighter and fluffier muffins with the most tender crumb ever. Absolute perfection.
Dark Brown Sugar: Lends the most wonderful flavours of rich caramel and butterscotch to the muffins (that works perfectly with the banana) whilst sweetening the batter AND helping to create a golden crust.
Brown The Butter: Yes, this is adds a whole extra step to the recipe but it’s so worth it, trust me! As the butter cooks, it turns amazingly brown, wonderfully fragrant and fantastically nutty. It adds unmistakable depth of roasted nutty flavour to any baked goodies and just makes these muffins.
Don’t overfill: Fill each muffin hole 3/4 full. This ensures your muffins achieve full tops without spilling over.
Soggy bottoms: Once baked, allow the muffins to cool for 5 minutes before placing on a wire rack. This little trick ensures no soggy bottoms.
How to freeze muffins
- Allow muffins to cool completely.
- Wrap individual muffins in cling film.
- Place wrapped muffins into a freezer safe bag or container.
- Label the container with name and date.
- Store in the freezer for up to 3 months.
- To reheat: Allow muffins to thaw on the counter (or in the fridge), place into a hot oven until warm or reheat in microwave.
When you’re blessed with a bunch of brown spotty bananas – peel, mash and stir them into these amazing Banana Chocolate Chip muffins, you’ll be so thrilled you did.
MORE MUFFIN RECIPES
blueberry lemon poppy seed muffins
raspberry and banana breakfast muffins
blueberry lemon and spelt muffins
strawberry banana and cacao nib muffins
one bowl banana and carrot mini loaves (or muffins)
wholemeal lemon ricotta and chia muffins
I know you’re going to love these Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins, please let me know if you make them by leaving a comment and rating the recipe. I’d love to hear from you and it helps encourage others to make the recipe too! Kayla xo
★ DID YOU MAKE THIS RECIPE? PLEASE GIVE IT A STAR RATING BELOW!
Print
Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins
- Total Time: 35 minutes
- Yield: 12 Muffins 1x
Description
Better than the bakery Banana Chocolate Chip Muffins! Bursting with sweet banana flavour, speckled with dark chocolate chips, with a golden sugared crust, these soft and fluffy muffins are delicious.
Ingredients
- 3/4 cup (190 ml) butter
- 2 1/2 cups (375 grams) plain flour
- 1 1/4 cups (260 grams) dark brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon, ground
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 teaspoon bicarb soda
- pinch of salt
- 2 eggs
- 1 1/2 cups (375 ml) greek (or natural) yoghurt
- 2 tablespoons vanilla bean paste (or extract)
- 2 bananas, mashed
- 1 1/2 cups (260 grams) dark chocolate chips
- 3 tablespoons caster sugar (or demerara sugar)
- 1 tablespoon cinnamon, ground
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 200 C and line a muffin tin with 12 papers. Set aside.
- Place the butter in a small saucepan over medium heat and cook until the butter is melted, foaming and turned brown and smells nutty. Set aside to cool slightly.
- Place the flour, sugar, cinnamon, baking powder, bicarb soda and salt into a bowl and whisk to combine creating a well in the centre. Set aside.
- Into a separate bowl place the brown butter, eggs, yoghurt, vanilla and mashed bananas and whisk to combine.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the well of the dry and using a wooden spoon stir until just combined. Do not over mix.
- Gently fold through the chocolate chips.
- Evenly divide the mixture between the prepared muffin tins.
- Place the caster sugar and cinnamon into a small bowl and stir to combine.
- Sprinkle each muffin with a little cinnamon sugar.
- Bake muffins for 15-20 minutes or until golden and when a skewer inserted removes cleanly. Enjoy x
Notes
Muffins best kept in an air tight container in the fridge. Will keep for 2-3 days.
Muffins are freezer friendly. Store in an air tight container or zip lock bag. Will keep for 3 months.
Nutritional information is only an estimate. The accuracy of the nutritional information for any recipe on this site is not guaranteed.
- Prep Time: 15 mins
- Cook Time: 20 mins
- Category: Muffins
- Method: Baking
- Cuisine: American
Hello, how can I best replace the bug amount of sugar in these?
Hi Sarah! Yes, you absolutely can! I set out to create quite a decadent ‘bakery style’ muffin hence the naughty amount of sugar but this recipe works just as well with a smaller amount. Feel free to use 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of sugar. I hope you enjoy this recipe. Happy baking. Kayla xo
Can I use maple syrup instead of sugar?
Hi Grace. I haven’t tested these muffins using maple syrup, however I think it would work. I’m thinking you’d like to reduce the amount of sugar in these muffins (totally get it, they’re quite a decadent bake) so 1/2 cup to 3/4 cup of pure maple syrup should sweeten the muffins perfectly. I hope that helps. Happy baking. Oh and please report back, I’d love to know how you go. Kayla xo
Hi, these look great! Just wanted to clarify – in the tips you recommend buttermilk, but there’s none in the ingredients list. Is that meant as a replacement for the yoghurt?
Hi Nat! Thank you! That’s a typo. I have tested this recipe with both buttermilk and yoghurt and found yoghurt yielded slightly better results to the muffin crumb and rise. Will update the error now. Thanks again for bringing it to my attention. Happy baking. Kayla xo
Loved making these! So quick and easy and oh so yummy!!!
Wonderful! YAY! So happy you enjoyed these muffins Danielle, thanks for letting me know! Kayla xo
This recipe had me at browned-butter! Huge hit right out of the oven. The only thing we did different, was we split the mix and made half with dark chocolate chips (as prescribed), and half with butterscotch chips (on request of my little sous-chef). Delicious either way, will be making again for sure 🙂
Do you think this could be made as a slice, loaf or cake?