Vanilla Chocochip Muffins
These bakery styled Eggless Vanilla Chocochip Muffins are tall, airy, super soft and moist and so light that it just melts away in mouth. Loaded with chocochips and with the right amount of vanilla for the flavouring, these muffins make a perfect choice for morning breakfasts or evening snacks.
A common misconception among many is that the muffins are cupcakes are the same. Definitely not! Muffins are relatively larger, with a mushroom like topping which is slightly crisp on outside and soft & moist on the inside. Also, the batter for muffins is a bit denser than the cupcakes. Cupcakes are generally topped with an icing, whereas muffins are served as-is with a cup of coffee or warm milk.
These muffins are super easy and quick to make. The ingredients used in this recipe are also readily available at home. These muffins are so good that it would be devoured not just by kids, but also adults in minutes! This is my no-fail recipe and even if you are an amateur baker, this is one of the safest bakes to get started with.
Traditional muffin recipes generally make use of eggs for the binding and making it soft, however this is my eggless recipe and are so soft and airy that you wouldn’t notice any difference! I have used a combination of milk and yoghurt in this recipe as substitute for egg.
Muffins taste best when they raise well to form a puffy dome. It is to be noted that if you bake the muffins directly in the muffin tray, the muffins shape like mushroom, as there is not enough room to raise over the cavity. So I prefer to make my muffins in a tulip muffin liners which are taller than the cupcake liner and the muffins beautifully raise evenly. These tulip liners are available in Amazon and other bakery supply stores.
Making these muffins are really easy, however make note to follow the below tips to get well-risen and light and airy muffins:
- Sift the dry ingredients: It is important to sift the all-purpose flour with baking powder and baking soda to make it light and airy and also mix the leavening agents well.
- Do not overmix: I recommend to use a hand whisk as compared to an electric whisk as the muffin batter should not be overmixed. Use the cut and fold method to mix the dry and wet ingredients
- Use a mix of butter and oil: I use a combination of melted butter and oil in equal proportion for this recipe. Oil makes the muffin moist and butter adds to the taste and richness.
- Brown Sugar: I use a small amount of brown sugar in the batter to get a gooey texture. Also sprinkling some brown sugar on top yields a beautiful crust.
- Refrigerate the batter: Refrigerating the batter for 30 minutes to one hour prior to baking helps in the muffins raising well.
- Bake at higher temperature initially: To get well-risen muffins, bake at 220 degree Celsius for first 5 minutes and then lower to 190 degrees and bake for another 15 to 18 minutes.
Serving Suggestion
These muffins can be had for breakfast or evening snacks along with coffee or milk. If you are making for breakfasts, you can prepare the batter and refrigerate it overnight and would make things pretty quick. Muffins taste best when consumed the same day that it is baked, however you could store it in air-tight container at room temperate for 3 to 4 days and would stay fresh.
Vanilla Chocochip Muffins
Equipment
- Muffin Tray
- Tulip Muffin Liners
Ingredients
- 2½ cups All-purpose Flour or Maida
- 120 grams Chocochips (mix of milk and dark or just milk) roughly ¾ cup
- 1 cup Sugar
- 2+1 tbsp Brown Sugar
- 1 tbsp Baking Powder
- 1 tsp Baking Soda
- ¼ cup Melted Butter
- ¼ cup Oil
- ¾ cup Milk
- ¾ cup Curd or Yoghurt
- 2 tsp Vanilla Essence
- ½ tsp Salt
Instructions
- Sieve plain flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a bowl
- To this add the chocochips and mix well.
- If the granulated sugar is too coarse, just pulse grind in mixer. Do not ground too fine.
- In a separate bowl, add milk and yoghurt and mix well using a whisk.
- To this mixture, add sugar, 2 tablespoons of brown sugar, vanilla essence, melted butter (at room temperature), oil.
- Mix the wet ingredients thoroughly using a whisk till the sugar is fully incorporated.
- Now add half of the flour mix to the liquid and mix gently using cut and fold method.
- Once the flour is incorporated, add the remaining flour mix and mix gently using the cut and fold method till the batter comes together.
- Cover the batter with a cling film or a plate and refrigerate it for 30 to 45 minutes.
- Pre-heat the oven to 220 degree Celsius. In the meanwhile arrange the tulip muffin liners in muffin tray. If you are not using muffin liners, you could grease the muffin tray with some butter and then dust with some plain flour.
- Using an ice-cream scooper, fill the batter in the muffin liners. The batter is to be filled to the height of the cavity in the muffin tray.
- Fill the batter in 12 equal portions. Now sprinkle some additional chocochips on top and a pinch of brown sugar on each muffin.
- Place the muffin tray in the middle rack of the oven and bake for 5 minutes at 220 degree Celsius.
- Now reduce the oven temperate to 190 degree Celsius and continue baking for another 15-18 odd minutes or till the toothpick comes clean when pricked through the muffin.
- Take the muffins out of the tray after 5 minutes and cool it on a cooling rack.
Notes
- Using a mixture of oil and melted butter yields super moist and soft muffins.
- Use a hand whisk to mix the ingredients as it is important not to overmix the batter. If you are using the electric mixer, use only for the wet ingredients.
- Refrigerating the batter for sometime before baking and baking the muffins at high temperature initially for 5 minutes helps with the rising of muffins.
- This same recipe works well for blueberry muffins too. Just replace the chocochips with fresh blueberries.
- Sprinkling of brown sugar on top yields a beautiful crunchy and golden crust.
- Do not open the oven door in between while baking, as this could alter the over temperature and the muffins could sink.
- Make sure not to bake the muffins for too long, as it would make the muffins dry. Bake just till the toothpick comes clean.
