Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffins feature a mocha muffin base that's studded with chocolate chips and topped with a crunchy toffee streusel for the best combination of flavor and texture!
Yield:
12 to 15 muffins
Prep Time:15minutes
Cook:20minutes
Tessa's Recipe Rundown...
Taste: These muffins have so much more flavor than almost all store-bought muffins I’ve ever tasted. Texture: The muffins are soft with bits of melty chocolate chips throughout but the best part is definitely the crunchy toffee topping. It adds a whole new layer of texture to muffins! Ease: Super easy. Appearance: I love the contrast of the dark chocolate muffins with the light tan toffee topping. Pros: Fun way to say and eat muffins. Cons: None, though I may try to use a 50/50 ratio of whole wheat flour to white flour next time and see if it tastes good. Would I make this again? Yes!
Don’t you just love the crazy fun name of these muffins? They’re almost as fun to say as they are to eat!
The name is what caught my attention at first, but the flavor concept sounded too delicious not to try!
I’m happy to report that these muffins are not only moist and tender, but loaded with cocoa and coffee flavors. Plus that crunchy toffee topping is just to die for. So much better that most boring, bland, and dry grocery store muffins.
I can’t even think about muffins without thinking about Jenna Maroney from 30 Rock and her Muffin Top song. Try not getting that stuck in your head all day long.
When I want to watch something light on TV I almost always stream one of the following: The Office, Parks & Rec, Friends, or 30 Rock. What’s your favorite comedy series to rewatch over and over?
How to Make The BEST Muffins
How to make muffins from scratch:
Whisk together your dry ingredients.
In a separate bowl, beat together your wet ingredients. Pour into the dry ingredients. Don’t overmix or you’ll have rubbery muffins. A few streaks of flour remaining is perfectly normal!
Add your toppings or flavor variations.
Divide among muffin tin, bake, and enjoy!
How to prevent muffins from sticking to the liners:
I recently experimented with the science of muffins and how to achieve beautiful, TALL muffins that look like they belong on the shelf of a fancy bakery. Check out my 3 tips for baking tall muffins here!
Hint: Chilling your muffin batter overnight makes for the BEST ever muffins!!
How to store muffins:
Muffins are best served the day they’re baked. If you have leftovers, store them for up to 1 day in an airtight container at room temperature. Refresh in a 300°F oven for 5 minutes or reheat in the microwave for 10 seconds.
For best results, freeze leftover muffins in an airtight container for up to 3 months. Defrost overnight at room temperature or reheat in the microwave for about 1 minute.
My Ultimate Muffin Cheatsheet:
If you want more muffin baking tips, plus tons of flavor variations, check out my Free Ultimate Muffin Cheatsheet:
Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffins feature a mocha muffin base that's studded with chocolate chips and topped with a crunchy toffee streusel for the best combination of flavor and texture!
1/2cuptoffee bits (such as Heath brand or homemade, recipe linked in directions)
1tablespoonbutter, at room temperature
Directions
Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line a muffin tin with paper muffin cups.
For the muffins:
In a large bowl combine the flour, brown sugar, sifted cocoa powder, espresso powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
In a small bowl combine the melted butter, buttermilk, eggs, and vanilla. Pour the butter mixture into the flour mixture and stir until combined. Stir in the chocolate chips. Do not overmix.
Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.
For the toffee crunch topping:
In a small bowl combine the flour, sugar, and toffee bits. Cut the butter into the mixture using the back of a fork until it is coarse and crumbly. Sprinkle about a tablespoon of the mixture over each unbaked muffin.
Bake for 20 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Transfer the pan to a wire rack to cool for 5 minutes before removing the muffins to the rack to cool completely.
Recipe Notes
*This can be found at many grocery stores and gourmet food stores. If you can't find it you can also use dark roast instant coffee.
Course:
Dessert
Cuisine:
American
This post was originally published in 2013 and recently updated with weight measurements and new photos by Ashley McLaughlin Photography.
About Tessa...
I share trusted baking recipes your friends will LOVE alongside insights into the science of sweets. I'm a professionally trained chef, cookbook author, and cookie queen. I love to write about all things sweet, carb-y, and homemade. I live in Phoenix, Arizona (hence the blog name!)
Yes, I love the name of this post. You are right, it just sounds good!! Plus, they looks delicious and any chocolate muffin is normally a winner in my eyes!
sally @ sallys baking addiction — August 26, 2013 at 7:48 am
How amazing are these, Tessa? I love recipes that rhyme. It makes me smile. I’m so corny! But these look delicious and I wouldn’t mind jumping out of bed any morning for one!
Loving these! I am always looking for things I can make for breakfast that we can have around for a few days. Although, I’m guessing these wouldn’t stay around that long 🙂
Alexandra @ Confessions of a Bright-Eyed Baker — August 29, 2013 at 9:17 am
These sound so good…way to take the classic double chocolate muffin and make it new again! I haven’t had a chocolate muffin in ages, but they used to always be my favorite. Adding the coffee and toffee would make them even better, I’m sure!
christina (sisters running the kitchen) — September 13, 2013 at 10:24 am
WOW. this look phenomenal! just pinned this recipe to try…thanks so much for sharing. I love toffee flavored things! Have you ever had the hersey nuggets? its like milk chocolate + almonds + toffee? so good!
I was so excited when I saw this recipe it sounded amazing. So for a party three of us all made this recipe three different homes. They all turned out the same and all three of us were disappointed. Flavor was nothing what the name would lead you to believe it tastes like. :0( hope the next recipe I try of yours is better.
Hi Sally, I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy the recipe. I’m not sure what makes you say the flavor wasn’t like the name, there is plenty of each namesake ingredient in the recipe!
I love muffins but haven’t made any in a while!! I think I may have to get back in the muffin groove and whip up a batch of these! I mean, toffee streusel, you can’t go wrong!! I can’t wait to try them!!
The pictures alone made me want to try this muffin recipe. I love chocolate and toffee. These were delicious muffins! I followed the recipe except for adding the espresso powder, since I don’t drink coffee. These are a definite keeper! Thanks for the recipe!
I just made these exactly like the recipe except for adding about a cup of pecan chips. Came out fabulous! Made 12 muffins and small mini-loaf. Thanks!
These sound wonderful. I love the flavor of coffeee, but I can’t have caffeine though. Do you think I could use an instant decaf coffee? Or is espresso powder even more fine than regular instant coffee? Thanks.
These made way more than 12 muffins. Were you using a standard muffin tin? I doubled the recipe, and got 36 muffins out of these, so one batch for 24 would have been fine.
A pet peeve of mine is when people alter the recipe and then complain about the outcome…so, the toffee crunch part just seemed too sweet for me today. So, I did zero crumb topping, omitted the chocolate chips, and stirred in a cup of peanut butter chips instead. They are delicious! (See? No complaining!) I’m fighting off the urge to have a third…
I would love to actually see this recipe BUT the mobile version has an INSANE amount if ads that pop up. When you try to close them they are on top if other ads which causes you to accidentally click in THAT ad! Nope. Not wasting my time trying to avoid ads, wltgat yes you get PAID for when people click on them!! Nope. I’ll find another recipe. Your ad amount is ridiculous. Shame on you!!!
I want to make these so bad today but it’s a holiday where I live and all the stores are closed, do you think I would be able to make the omitting the espresso powder?
I made this over the weekend and shared it with my cousins. We all loved it! The muffins weren’t overly sweet as you’d expect and wasn’t too heavy. I followed the recipe as is, the only thing was I wasn’t sure how much to fill the cups to get the “muffin top” so a lot of people did mistake them for cupcakes.
I absolutely will be making this recipe again in the future!
I’m planning on making this tonight and after having read through the comment to make sure I’m not being duplicitous…has anyone tried this as a “coffee cake” style and baked in a 9×13 pan? We have a staff meeting in the morning and this will hopefully make everyone happy to meet at 8 am. (yeah, right! 😉 )
They look and sound delicious but are more a cupcake than a muffin. To me muffins are contain healthier ingredients such as oatmeal, shear or oat ran, fruit, nuts and less sugar.
I made these and gave them away before I got a picture of them… very decadent with all the flavors of coffee chocolate and heath bits … Delish! I did eat one before I delivered them to neighbors!
The overnight refrigeration method for the lemon/poppy seed muffin, does that method apply to all muffin batter? I’m really looking forward to the chocolate/toffee muffin and was just wondering if that (and then I thought, hey, how about all muffins) would benefit from overnight refrigeration. Thank you Tessa for your awesome recipes. I look forward to joining a challenge one of these months!
These muffins are absolutely delicious. But I have a recommendation – the coffee flavor is very mild, so mild, that the muffins taste like dark chocolate rather than chocolate coffee flavoring. If you want to really taste the coffee, I would recommend tripling the instant espresso/instant coffee crystals. The second time I made these muffins, I did just that – 3 tablespoons of Instant Espresso (I used Medaglia D’Oro brand instant espresso) and it was just right – perfect chocolate to coffee balance. If you melt some dark chocolate and mix in a little bit of the espresso powder than drizzle it on top of each muffin, they are even better! BTW I also used Heath Toffee Bits for the topping & doubled the toffee amount, which turned out really good.
Sure! Place cooled muffins on a baking sheet and freeze until solid. Remove them to an airtight
container and freeze for up to 3 months. More info in my Make Ahead Baking Guide!
Forget my question on whether then can be frozen or not. I was looking for the notes after the recipe. I found it above. I have them in the oven now and can’t wait to try them!
I honestly haven’t tried them without espresso. If you don’t have espresso powder, you’re welcome to substitute dark roast instant coffee 🙂 Let me know how it goes if you completely leave it out!
Followed recipe exactly turned out great. My husband is not a fan of sweets and he liked these as they are not too sweet. Thanks for the recipe and tips for beautiful bakery muffins. I refrigerated the batter overnight as suggested.
I’ve made this twice now. The first time I made it, i subbed buttermilk with soured 1% milk (soured with lemon juice). Second time, I used buttermilk. The batter was a thinner consistency the first time, and due to ease of using soured milk, I may stick with this adaption. I used the toffee bit topping the first time. DS didn’t care for, DH loved it to the point of eating only the muffin tops and leaving the muffin. DD loved it. The second time, I left off the toffee topping completely (just to please everybody!). I’d like to try it again using 1 cup 1% milk and 1/2 cup greek yogurt.
Hi Amy! For these muffins, they are best served the day they’re baked both taste and texture-wise; however, we do list instructions on how to freeze the muffins in the pink tip box above the recipe for easy reheat. You’re welcome to store them at room temperature longer, just know they won’t be at their freshest.
I would like to make these, do you recommend Heath toffee over your homemade toffee? I found this recipe bc we love the homemade toffee and wanted to see what else we could make with it and was surprised to find Heath in the recipe.
Hi Shannon! You know how much we love our homemade toffee! That recipe actually came out in 2020, seven years after this muffin recipe; however, I just updated the recipe directions to include a link to our homemade toffee. That would be absolutely delicious in this recipe 🙂 Thanks for asking!
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Yes, I love the name of this post. You are right, it just sounds good!! Plus, they looks delicious and any chocolate muffin is normally a winner in my eyes!
How amazing are these, Tessa? I love recipes that rhyme. It makes me smile. I’m so corny! But these look delicious and I wouldn’t mind jumping out of bed any morning for one!
Chocolate, coffee, and toffee?? This muffin looks and sounds amazing! Will have to give this a try–thanks for sharing!
These look amazing. I can’t wait to try them.
These muffins look beyond amazing and the toffee crunch is making me swoon! And they’re beautiful too, I love pretty food haha
I love the name and I love the muffins – homemade muffins are one of my favorite things!!
Love the flavors in these muffins! Wish I were snacking on one right now!
I would love to have this for breakfast. Everyday 🙂
Loving these! I am always looking for things I can make for breakfast that we can have around for a few days. Although, I’m guessing these wouldn’t stay around that long 🙂
Wow! Are these real life?! They look absolutely incredible. Pinning!
These sound so good…way to take the classic double chocolate muffin and make it new again! I haven’t had a chocolate muffin in ages, but they used to always be my favorite. Adding the coffee and toffee would make them even better, I’m sure!
Yum – I am a huge muffin person, and that toffee topping sounds incredible!
Love every word of this recipe title! Wish I had that basket in front of me for breakfast tomorrow.
I am loving every single thing you have in these muffins! I could definitely go for a few of these with my coffee this morning!
These muffins look amazing Tessa!! And they look like the perfect thing to use the buttermilk that is sitting in my fridge!!
WOW. this look phenomenal! just pinned this recipe to try…thanks so much for sharing. I love toffee flavored things! Have you ever had the hersey nuggets? its like milk chocolate + almonds + toffee? so good!
These muffins look mouth-watering good! I can’t wait to try them this weekend.
I was so excited when I saw this recipe it sounded amazing. So for a party three of us all made this recipe three different homes. They all turned out the same and all three of us were disappointed. Flavor was nothing what the name would lead you to believe it tastes like. :0( hope the next recipe I try of yours is better.
Hi Sally, I’m sorry you didn’t enjoy the recipe. I’m not sure what makes you say the flavor wasn’t like the name, there is plenty of each namesake ingredient in the recipe!
Any substitute for egg or I can make without egg follows the recipe
Substitute for egg or I can make without egg follows the recipe
Can freshly brewed coffee be substituted for espresso powder? Can’t wait to try this recipe!
I love muffins but haven’t made any in a while!! I think I may have to get back in the muffin groove and whip up a batch of these! I mean, toffee streusel, you can’t go wrong!! I can’t wait to try them!!
The pictures alone made me want to try this muffin recipe. I love chocolate and toffee. These were delicious muffins! I followed the recipe except for adding the espresso powder, since I don’t drink coffee. These are a definite keeper! Thanks for the recipe!
Glad you made it work for you, Kristin!
This looks amazing!! What is espresso powder? Brand name? I went to my local grocers and they don’t carry it.
Sometimes it can be hard to find, but Walmart and Target both carry it near me! There’s King Arthur and Medaglia D’oro. Hope that helps!
Is the espresso powder instant?
Yes!
I just made these exactly like the recipe except for adding about a cup of pecan chips. Came out fabulous! Made 12 muffins and small mini-loaf. Thanks!
These sound wonderful. I love the flavor of coffeee, but I can’t have caffeine though. Do you think I could use an instant decaf coffee? Or is espresso powder even more fine than regular instant coffee? Thanks.
These made way more than 12 muffins. Were you using a standard muffin tin? I doubled the recipe, and got 36 muffins out of these, so one batch for 24 would have been fine.
Can this recipe be made as regular brownies? What baking time would I use?
Oh. My. Gosh. These are amazing! I didn’t have buttermilk so I did the milk & vinegar trick. Worked great.
A pet peeve of mine is when people alter the recipe and then complain about the outcome…so, the toffee crunch part just seemed too sweet for me today. So, I did zero crumb topping, omitted the chocolate chips, and stirred in a cup of peanut butter chips instead. They are delicious! (See? No complaining!) I’m fighting off the urge to have a third…
I would love to actually see this recipe BUT the mobile version has an INSANE amount if ads that pop up. When you try to close them they are on top if other ads which causes you to accidentally click in THAT ad! Nope. Not wasting my time trying to avoid ads, wltgat yes you get PAID for when people click on them!! Nope. I’ll find another recipe. Your ad amount is ridiculous. Shame on you!!!
Can I use something else apart from buttermilk
I want to make these so bad today but it’s a holiday where I live and all the stores are closed, do you think I would be able to make the omitting the espresso powder?
Of course! You just won’t get that coffee flavor.
How amazing are these? I love the recipe you shared and I can’t wait to try them. Thank you so much, I really appreciated.
Could this be made into a loaf?
I made this exactly as written and they are bakery worthy. Thank you for such an awesome recipe!
Just looking to clarify… for the topping would you want the toffee bits with chocolate or the ones without? I would assume the ones without? Thanks!
You can do either! I like the chocolate ones 🙂
hi there are a susstitut for butter milk
I made this over the weekend and shared it with my cousins. We all loved it! The muffins weren’t overly sweet as you’d expect and wasn’t too heavy. I followed the recipe as is, the only thing was I wasn’t sure how much to fill the cups to get the “muffin top” so a lot of people did mistake them for cupcakes.
I absolutely will be making this recipe again in the future!
I’m planning on making this tonight and after having read through the comment to make sure I’m not being duplicitous…has anyone tried this as a “coffee cake” style and baked in a 9×13 pan? We have a staff meeting in the morning and this will hopefully make everyone happy to meet at 8 am. (yeah, right! 😉 )
They look and sound delicious but are more a cupcake than a muffin. To me muffins are contain healthier ingredients such as oatmeal, shear or oat ran, fruit, nuts and less sugar.
Excellent, made it with espresso as we have to watch the caffeine, but they were awesome!!! Family loved them
Do they freeze well?
This looks so good! What a perfect treat to share at weekend brunch!
I made these and gave them away before I got a picture of them… very decadent with all the flavors of coffee chocolate and heath bits … Delish! I did eat one before I delivered them to neighbors!
Can you use fresh coffee grounds in this recipe? Does it have to be instant? Thank you!
The overnight refrigeration method for the lemon/poppy seed muffin, does that method apply to all muffin batter? I’m really looking forward to the chocolate/toffee muffin and was just wondering if that (and then I thought, hey, how about all muffins) would benefit from overnight refrigeration. Thank you Tessa for your awesome recipes. I look forward to joining a challenge one of these months!
It should! 🙂
These muffins are absolutely delicious. But I have a recommendation – the coffee flavor is very mild, so mild, that the muffins taste like dark chocolate rather than chocolate coffee flavoring. If you want to really taste the coffee, I would recommend tripling the instant espresso/instant coffee crystals. The second time I made these muffins, I did just that – 3 tablespoons of Instant Espresso (I used Medaglia D’Oro brand instant espresso) and it was just right – perfect chocolate to coffee balance. If you melt some dark chocolate and mix in a little bit of the espresso powder than drizzle it on top of each muffin, they are even better! BTW I also used Heath Toffee Bits for the topping & doubled the toffee amount, which turned out really good.
how can we made it eggless?
I made these muffins and drizzles dulce de leche on top and sprinkled extra toffee bits. They were a hit !
Hi Tessa, sorry to bother, is there’s any possibility that these muffins can be able into gluten free?
Ps: love the recipes and the pictures
Could I use the new nestle mocha chips in this? I’m thinking, I should leave out the expresso powder if I do? What are your thoughts on this?
I would love to try these. Unfortunately I can’t see it because you have too much pop-up Crapola that is blocking the recipe.
These came out delicious.. I used only 1 cup of buttermilk and added 1/2 cup of Greek yoghurt.. moist and divine.. two words to describe them!!
Hi! Can’t wait to try this recipe! Can these be frozen after completed?
Sure! Place cooled muffins on a baking sheet and freeze until solid. Remove them to an airtight
container and freeze for up to 3 months. More info in my Make Ahead Baking Guide!
Wow,the most tasty muffins!!
What do you use as a buttermilk? I put milk+vinegar..
I buy buttermilk from the dairy section at the grocery store! I don’t find buttermilk substitutes to yield the same results.
Great Recipe! One of my favorites!
Wonderful to hear this!
Can these be frozen?
Forget my question on whether then can be frozen or not. I was looking for the notes after the recipe. I found it above. I have them in the oven now and can’t wait to try them!
Yay! I hope you enjoyed your muffins 🙂
Can I make them without the caramel crunch?
You’re more than welcome to, but it’s absolutely delicious! I highly recommend keeping the toffee crunch on top 🙂
Would it hurt to leave the espresso powder out?
I honestly haven’t tried them without espresso. If you don’t have espresso powder, you’re welcome to substitute dark roast instant coffee 🙂 Let me know how it goes if you completely leave it out!
These were very good, soft, moist and delicious! I brought these to work and my co-workers loved them too!
Delicious!! Came out perfect! All of my favorite flavors
Followed recipe exactly turned out great. My husband is not a fan of sweets and he liked these as they are not too sweet. Thanks for the recipe and tips for beautiful bakery muffins. I refrigerated the batter overnight as suggested.
I’m so glad you both enjoyed them!
I am not a fan of coffee flavour of any kind. Could you just leave it out?
We haven’t tried that!
I’ve made this twice now. The first time I made it, i subbed buttermilk with soured 1% milk (soured with lemon juice). Second time, I used buttermilk. The batter was a thinner consistency the first time, and due to ease of using soured milk, I may stick with this adaption. I used the toffee bit topping the first time. DS didn’t care for, DH loved it to the point of eating only the muffin tops and leaving the muffin. DD loved it. The second time, I left off the toffee topping completely (just to please everybody!). I’d like to try it again using 1 cup 1% milk and 1/2 cup greek yogurt.
Love hearing of all your experiments! Glad this recipe is enjoyed 🙂
Are they only really good for one day? Can I leave them at room temperature for longer?
Hi Amy! For these muffins, they are best served the day they’re baked both taste and texture-wise; however, we do list instructions on how to freeze the muffins in the pink tip box above the recipe for easy reheat. You’re welcome to store them at room temperature longer, just know they won’t be at their freshest.
I would like to make these, do you recommend Heath toffee over your homemade toffee? I found this recipe bc we love the homemade toffee and wanted to see what else we could make with it and was surprised to find Heath in the recipe.
thanks
Hi Shannon! You know how much we love our homemade toffee! That recipe actually came out in 2020, seven years after this muffin recipe; however, I just updated the recipe directions to include a link to our homemade toffee. That would be absolutely delicious in this recipe 🙂 Thanks for asking!