Tessa’s Recipe Rundown
Taste: These muffins have so much more flavor than any 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.
Why You’ll Love This Recipe: So much fun and flavor packed into an easy homemade muffin.
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Don’t you just love the crazy fun name of these muffins? They’re almost as fun to say as they are to eat!
I was inspired by my best friend Ashley who posted a recipe for Toffee Coffee Chocolate Chip Blondies.
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 than 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!
These easy, crazy-delicious muffins are sure to become your new favorites. I hope you love them!
Sprinkle of Science
How to Make Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffins
How to Make MOIST Muffins and Prevent DRY Muffins:
- Do not over-measure the flour or cocoa powder: I recommend using a digital kitchen scale to measure your ingredients, but if you don’t have one, use the spoon-and-level method. Learn more about the importance of measuring flour correctly here.
- Buttermilk: Buttermilk also brings even more moisture to these muffins (as well as a ton of flavor!). More on buttermilk just below.
Do I Have to Use Real Buttermilk?
- Buttermilk brings a wonderful flavor to these Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffins, as well as making them beautifully tender and moist.
- If you’re unable to find real buttermilk, you can use whole milk in its place (1:1 ratio) but note that your resulting muffins won’t be quite as flavorful or tender.
- I don’t recommend using 2% or skim milk, and I haven’t tried any milk alternatives here.
- Learn more about the science of buttermilk, and buttermilk substitutes, here.
Do I Have to Use Brown Sugar?
Brown sugar brings depth of flavor, moisture, and richness to these Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffins. I used light brown sugar, but you can use dark brown instead (1:1 ratio). Whatever you do, don’t reduce the sugar in these Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffins. Sugar does so much more than simply sweetening your baking. Learn more about sugar’s role in baking here.
What Type of Cocoa Powder do I Need?
Use natural unsweetened cocoa powder in these Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffins. Learn more about Natural vs. Dutch-Processed Cocoa Powder here.
How to Prevent Muffins From Sticking to the Liners
These are my favorite muffin liners that won’t stick. If sticky liners are a common problem for you, check out my full post on How to Prevent Cupcake/Muffin Liners from Sticking.
How to Bake TALL Muffins
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 Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffins
Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch 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. To store longer, see freezing instructions just below.
How to Freeze Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffins
Freeze leftover Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffins in an airtight container for up to 3 months. Defrost overnight at room temperature or reheat in the microwave for about 1 minute.
More Recipes You’ll Love:
- Double Chocolate Banana Muffins (perfectly chocolatey!)
- Pumpkin Muffins
- Banana Espresso Chocolate Chip Muffins
- Chocolate Peanut Butter Banana Muffins
- Lemon Poppy Seed Muffins
- Espresso Martini Cookies
Chocolate Coffee Toffee Crunch Muffins
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Ingredients
For the muffins:
- 2 cups (254 grams) all-purpose flour
- 2/3 cup (133 grams) packed brown sugar
- 1/2 cup (43 grams) unsweetened cocoa powder, sifted
- 1 tablespoon instant
espresso powder * - 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 6 tablespoons (85 grams) unsalted butter, melted
- 1 1/2 cups buttermilk**
- 2 large eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup (170 grams) semisweet chocolate chips
For the toffee crunch topping:
- 1/4 cup (32 grams) all-purpose flour
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- 1/2 cup toffee bits (such as Heath brand or
homemade ) - 1 tablespoon butter, at room temperature
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F. Line a standard 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
The Ultimate Cookie Handbook
Learn the sweet SCIENCE of cookie baking in a fun, visual way to customize your own recipes frustration-free. Plus, my best 50+ homemade cookies!
This post was originally published in 2013 and recently updated with weight measurements and new photos by Ashley McLaughlin Photography.
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 🙂