Vegan Double Chocolate Muffins are egg-free, rich, cake-like muffins sweetened with maple syrup instead of sugar. I've had this recipe for many years and have changed things over and over, but the recipe card version has a good, solid base recipe. No doubt you will make your own little changes!
Soy milk and Vegan Milks
Vegan Double Chocolate Muffins call for soy milk instead of regular milk. Soy milk was once the only vegan milk readily available at one point. Now we have oat milk, almond milk and honestly -- more milks than I can name here! If you use almond milk, try to find one of the slightly richer versions, as the 30 calorie per cup kind might be a little too watery. I've found good old soy milk to be the best for baking. And if you aren't so concerned with dairy and are just avoiding eggs, you can use regular milk.
At one point I made these with coconut milk. If you have some canned coconut milk you need to use, you can use that in place of the soy milk and reduce the oil to 1 tablespoon since the coconut milk already has plenty of fat.
Maple Syrup
The syrup adds moisture, but does not really add a lot of maple flavor. The recipe makes anywhere from 6 to 9 muffins depending on how large you choose to make them. The muffins are not too sweet, so make sure to add the chocolate chips for a little extra richness. I like putting a little coarse sugar on top as well, but that is optional.
Update: Now we have monk fruit and allulose sweetened maple syrups, so you can try using all or half sugar free syrup to lighten the sugar load. Using a sugar-free maple syrup, a high fiber flour like Fiber Gourmet and sugar free chocolate chips cuts the calories down to about 103.
Recipe
Vegan Double Chocolate Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 ¼ cups whole wheat flour (or use all-purpose) (155 grams)
- ¼ cup unsweetened natural cocoa powder (20 grams)
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ½ tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- ½ cup maple syrup
- ¾ cup soymilk or another vegan milk
- ½ teaspoon vanilla extract
- 2 tablespoons oil, vegetable or melted coconut
- ⅓ cup chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 9 muffin cups or line with paper liners.
- Whisk the flour, cocoa, baking soda, baking powder and salt together in a bowl.
- Whisk the maple syrup, milk, vanilla and oil together in a second bowl.
- Pour wet ingredients into dry ingredients and stir until mixed. Stir in the chocolate chips. Divide evenly among muffin cups and bake on center rack for 18-20 minutes.
- Cool completely on a wire rack.
Shelley says
I've had to give up dairy because my breastfeeding daughter has an allergy - and I've been craving chocolate goodies like crazy. These muffins saved the day, gorgoeus! thankyou for sharing
nags says
those do look amazing 🙂
Anna says
Hi Samantha,
As I understand it, it has to do with the ph levels of cocoa. Dutch process has had some of its a acidity removed and with less acid, might not react as well with the other leavenings and the result might be less of a rise in the muffin. If you Google Dutch Process vs. Natural, you'll get a more scientfic explanation, but I can tell you from personal experience using different cocoa gives you different results. One cookie where I can really see a difference is the Tex Mex Chocolate Cookies. If I use Dutch process, I get flat cookies. If I use natural, I get really puffy and fat cookies.
This recipe has both types of leavening (baking soda/neutral and baking powder/acid) so using Dutch process might not cause huge problems. However, the original recipe warned not to so I suppose the natural works better.
samantha says
these look absolutely delicious! only question is how come you cannot use the dutch process??
BigSis says
I'm trying these! I'm in my third week of being vegan, so this is perfect timing! I have a fabulous recipe for vegan pumpkin bread, so I KNOW there is good vegan baking to be done. I did have a horrible nasty vegan disaster over the weekend with some buckwheat-hemp-flax-banana pancakes. They were green and soggy and just plain grossness. These cupcakes, however, sound delicious!
Laura E. says
serious eats just reviled their pick for the best chocolate chip cookie in New York!
http://newyork.seriouseats.com/2010/01/chocolate-chip-cookie-championship-the-finals-best-new-york-city-cookie.html#continued
Meryl says
Anna,
These sound great!
By the way, I sent emails to both your email addresses, but they were sent back to me. So, I guess I'll need to use another account when I want to contact you.
Katrina says
An intervention, hmmm? I'll come get you and we'll head to....the cookie capitol of the world. Now, where is that? Anyone? Best cookies anywhere? I'm still sold on Levains and Jacques. That settles it, we need a trip to NYC! Sigh. Oh how I wish!
Jessica @ How Sweet It Is says
Oh these sound fabulous!! They look delicious!
Anna says
Katrina, I need some muffin madness intervention!
Dani, let me know if you try them.
Martha, I've decided that a cupcake is a) frosted, has a flatter top, and is sweeter and a muffins is b) domed (hopefully!), has a less-tight crumb and is often less sweet. I'm trying to make muffins that really taste and feel like muffins rather than just cakes in disguise. Then again, I guess they're all just little cakes.
Lisa, I love the idea of adding peanut butter chips to these and will definitely try it next time.
BTW. Happy Martin Luther King Day!! I should have mentioned it earlier.
Lisa Ernst says
Very timely recipe! This looks like a great base for chocolate muffins. I've yet to embark on my vegan muffin experiments, but already I have another one in mind (beyond the chocolate chip coconut). Now I want to do a peanut butter chocolate chip with bits of Newman's Own dark chocolate peanut butter cups added. Fun!
Fat Fudge says
I have the cookbook. I tried one recipe and it was awful! Needless to say, I have never used it again.
Martha in KS says
These sound sweet & delicious, but I'm noticing that many muffin recipes sound like cupcakes. What's the difference? No icing?
dani says
oh these look and sound so fabulous!!! gonna have to try them out next time i am craving something choclate-y 🙂
Katrina says
Where is my Cookie Mad Anna and what have you done with her?! 😉
No, really, I love all this Muffin Madness! Eggs Schmeggs, who needs 'em when there
seems to be so many great recipes out there without them? I recently posted some "vegan" ccc's I made, too! And they are really good!