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.
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!)
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!)
Kiersten @ Handle the Heat
— March 27, 2023 at 8:24 am
Hi Sahira! This is actually a complicated question to answer! American butter is about 80% butterfat and 20% water (typically, depending slightly on the brand of butter), so when you brown butter, you lose that extra moisture/water as it evaporates through the browning process. It takes some experimentation to alter a regular non-browned-butter recipe to work with browned butter for that reason. You can simply try adding a little water back into the recipe, or start with more butter than the recipe requests, in order to compensate for the moisture you’ll lose as it browns. It’s something you’ll have to experiment with a little in order to perfect, but it can be done, and it’s a fun experiment in the meantime 🙂
Hi Louise! You can sign up for our weekly newsletter HERE (we’ll also send you our Cookie Customization sheet as a thank you!). Receiving our newsletter ensures you’ll be the first to know about new recipes, baking challenges, and all other exciting HTH happenings! 🙂
I don’t see why not! You’ll need to add just a couple minutes to the baking time. I’d suggest still checking them around the 20 minute mark and then bake until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Let us know how it goes!
Kiersten @ Handle the Heat
— October 20, 2022 at 8:19 am
Hi Pam! It may soften slightly, yes, but you should be able to re-crisp by popping back in the oven for a few minutes 🙂 Let us know what you think once you’ve given these muffins a try!! 🙂
Kiersten @ Handle the Heat
— July 29, 2022 at 11:23 am
Hi Judith! We haven’t tried that, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work! I can’t tell you how long to bake for, since we haven’t tested that, but just watch very closely and remove from the oven as soon as a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean! I would also recommend swapping out the chocolate chips for mini chocolate chips, just so there’s a better distribution of chocolate in your mini muffins. Let us know how it goes! 🙂
Per your hint to chill the muffin batter overnight, do you have a recommendation as to whether I should chill the batter just in the bowl I mixed them in overnight, or scoop the batter into the muffin tins and then chill overnight? Thank you!
Kiersten @ Handle the Heat
— June 14, 2022 at 12:33 pm
Hi Fanya! Tessa prefers to rest the batter in one bowl instead of portioning out the batter into the muffin tin, then chilling, as the latter is more likely to dry out the batter. Allowing it to rest in one bowl also allows the flavors to meld together nicely! The next morning, you can portion the batter and bake right away – no need to bring it to room temperature! I hope that helps! Happy baking 🙂
Hi Tessa! I love all your muffin recipes and my favorite so far is the brown butter blueberry muffins. They are heavenly! I would love to give this a try, too. However, I’ve been using powdered buttermilk diluted in water instead of the liquid buttermilk because from where I am now access to the latter is difficult. Does it make a difference at all in terms of taste and texture? Will it also work for this Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffins? Thank you!
Kiersten @ Handle the Heat
— May 31, 2022 at 9:01 am
Hi Lara! We haven’t tried substituting for real buttermilk in this recipe, but you can absolutely try! Sometimes, the powdered version or homemade substitutions don’t work as well as the real thing (as Tessa found in experimentations – read about that here!), but if real buttermilk is hard to come by where you are, then the powdered version would likely be your best bet! Experiment a little, and see what works for you 🙂
Hi, your lemon and poppy seed muffins are great thankyou, I’d like to make some more of your recipes. Would you please send me the link to your toffee so I can make the Chocolate, Coffee, Toffee Crunch. With thanks!
Kiersten @ Handle the Heat
— February 21, 2023 at 10:05 am
Hi Suzie! So glad to hear that you enjoyed those muffins! The recipe for the toffee bits is linked in the recipe for the Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffins, but here is the link to the recipe again just in case. Let us know what you think of these muffins once you have given them a try 🙂
Love these Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffins, these muffins seems super delicious and unique. Will love to try this Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffin, seem super amazing . My kids gonna love this one.
hello, I have a question.
I am new to baking and in this recipe it doesn’t say if the buttermilk should be room temperature? is it supposed to be or does it not matter in this recipe? In your amazing chocolate cupcake recipe that I recently made and loved it does specify.
Kiersten @ Handle the Heat
— September 8, 2022 at 12:56 pm
Hi Kayla! We don’t specify because it’s not a big deal with this particular recipe, but I’d still advise that you measure it out and let it come to room temperature for at least a little bit, before mixing with the other ingredients 🙂 Let us know what you think once you’ve made these muffins!
Made this recipe to share with my mother-in-law’s caregiver office group. They were everything you promised – beautiful, flavorful, not too sweet, tender, moist and delicious. I used half espresso chocolate chips and half mini chocolate chips. Yum. They’re in my go-to list of reliably delicious muffins. Thank you!
As good as they look!! I used a mix of dark chocolate and semi sweet chunks and they tasted perfect. The toffee topping cannot be skipped – it’s flawless!
So sorry to hear that, Richard! This is something we’re actively working on to improve. If this happens again, please take a screenshot of what you’re seeing and email me at [email protected] so I can share it with our tech team. In the meantime, if you click on the print icon for any of our recipes, it will “reformat” the recipe without ads, here is a link. I hope that helps!
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!
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’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.
We just left it out because we are not coffee drinkers at all and I did my want to buy it. They still turned out great with better flavor than my other double chocolate muffin recipe. This one has replaced our other one.
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 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!
As a trained chef and cookbook author, I share trusted baking recipes your friends & family will love alongside insights into the science of sweets. I help take the luck out of baking so you *always* have delicious results! Learn more here.
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Hi! These look incredible 🙂 I was wondering if it would help to brown the butter before adding it to the recipe?
Hi Sahira! This is actually a complicated question to answer! American butter is about 80% butterfat and 20% water (typically, depending slightly on the brand of butter), so when you brown butter, you lose that extra moisture/water as it evaporates through the browning process. It takes some experimentation to alter a regular non-browned-butter recipe to work with browned butter for that reason. You can simply try adding a little water back into the recipe, or start with more butter than the recipe requests, in order to compensate for the moisture you’ll lose as it browns. It’s something you’ll have to experiment with a little in order to perfect, but it can be done, and it’s a fun experiment in the meantime 🙂
This is a great muffin. It easy to make always turns out great. These are the most requested muffin out of everything I make.
How do I subscribe to your site?
Hi Louise! You can sign up for our weekly newsletter HERE (we’ll also send you our Cookie Customization sheet as a thank you!). Receiving our newsletter ensures you’ll be the first to know about new recipes, baking challenges, and all other exciting HTH happenings! 🙂
I like to make jumbo muffins. Would these work as jumbo? Any ideas about baking time for this change?
Thanks!
I don’t see why not! You’ll need to add just a couple minutes to the baking time. I’d suggest still checking them around the 20 minute mark and then bake until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean. Let us know how it goes!
Will the topping on these get soft if I refrigerate or freeze these?
Hi Pam! It may soften slightly, yes, but you should be able to re-crisp by popping back in the oven for a few minutes 🙂 Let us know what you think once you’ve given these muffins a try!! 🙂
can’t wait to try them.
Would these be as good as mini muffins? Or do they need to be regular-sized muffins?
Hi Judith! We haven’t tried that, but I don’t see why it wouldn’t work! I can’t tell you how long to bake for, since we haven’t tested that, but just watch very closely and remove from the oven as soon as a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean! I would also recommend swapping out the chocolate chips for mini chocolate chips, just so there’s a better distribution of chocolate in your mini muffins. Let us know how it goes! 🙂
Love these delicious Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffins, amazing ones. Super excited to try this one with us .
Can’t wait to hear what you think of these, Rose!
Per your hint to chill the muffin batter overnight, do you have a recommendation as to whether I should chill the batter just in the bowl I mixed them in overnight, or scoop the batter into the muffin tins and then chill overnight? Thank you!
Hi Fanya! Tessa prefers to rest the batter in one bowl instead of portioning out the batter into the muffin tin, then chilling, as the latter is more likely to dry out the batter. Allowing it to rest in one bowl also allows the flavors to meld together nicely! The next morning, you can portion the batter and bake right away – no need to bring it to room temperature! I hope that helps! Happy baking 🙂
Hi Tessa! I love all your muffin recipes and my favorite so far is the brown butter blueberry muffins. They are heavenly! I would love to give this a try, too. However, I’ve been using powdered buttermilk diluted in water instead of the liquid buttermilk because from where I am now access to the latter is difficult. Does it make a difference at all in terms of taste and texture? Will it also work for this Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffins? Thank you!
Hi Lara! We haven’t tried substituting for real buttermilk in this recipe, but you can absolutely try! Sometimes, the powdered version or homemade substitutions don’t work as well as the real thing (as Tessa found in experimentations – read about that here!), but if real buttermilk is hard to come by where you are, then the powdered version would likely be your best bet! Experiment a little, and see what works for you 🙂
Hi, your lemon and poppy seed muffins are great thankyou, I’d like to make some more of your recipes. Would you please send me the link to your toffee so I can make the Chocolate, Coffee, Toffee Crunch. With thanks!
Hi Suzie! So glad to hear that you enjoyed those muffins! The recipe for the toffee bits is linked in the recipe for the Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffins, but here is the link to the recipe again just in case. Let us know what you think of these muffins once you have given them a try 🙂
Love these Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffins, these muffins seems super delicious and unique. Will love to try this Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffin, seem super amazing . My kids gonna love this one.
hello, I have a question.
I am new to baking and in this recipe it doesn’t say if the buttermilk should be room temperature? is it supposed to be or does it not matter in this recipe? In your amazing chocolate cupcake recipe that I recently made and loved it does specify.
Hi Kayla! We don’t specify because it’s not a big deal with this particular recipe, but I’d still advise that you measure it out and let it come to room temperature for at least a little bit, before mixing with the other ingredients 🙂 Let us know what you think once you’ve made these muffins!
I love your recipes and most of the time forget to tell you. This one is a major winner! Thank you for a keeper!
Made this recipe to share with my mother-in-law’s caregiver office group. They were everything you promised – beautiful, flavorful, not too sweet, tender, moist and delicious. I used half espresso chocolate chips and half mini chocolate chips. Yum. They’re in my go-to list of reliably delicious muffins. Thank you!
As good as they look!! I used a mix of dark chocolate and semi sweet chunks and they tasted perfect. The toffee topping cannot be skipped – it’s flawless!
So happy you loved this recipe!
I was interested in seeing this recipe but couldn’t get rid of the ads blocking the recipe. Time to skip it
So sorry to hear that, Richard! This is something we’re actively working on to improve. If this happens again, please take a screenshot of what you’re seeing and email me at [email protected] so I can share it with our tech team. In the meantime, if you click on the print icon for any of our recipes, it will “reformat” the recipe without ads, here is a link. I hope that helps!
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!
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’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 🙂
I am not a fan of coffee flavour of any kind. Could you just leave it out?
We haven’t tried that!
We just left it out because we are not coffee drinkers at all and I did my want to buy it. They still turned out great with better flavor than my other double chocolate muffin recipe. This one has replaced our other one.
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!
Delicious!! Came out perfect! All of my favorite flavors
These were very good, soft, moist and delicious! I brought these to work and my co-workers loved them too!
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!
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 🙂