Chocolate Banana Muffins
Posted Feb 11, 2022, Updated May 12, 2024
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These double chocolate banana muffins are moist with a rich chocolate flavor. This bakery-quality chocolate banana muffin recipe is easy to make in one bowl with simple ingredients.
What would you get if banana muffins and brownies had a baby? Answer: these chocolate banana muffins!
This bakery-quality chocolate banana muffin recipe is easy to make in one bowl with simple ingredients. It yields an irresistibly moist and intensely chocolatey muffin that has an almost brownie-like texture while retaining a tender crumb.
Because chocolate for breakfast is always a good idea (also try these chocolate chip banana muffins and double chocolate muffins)!
Chocolate Banana Muffins: Ingredients & Substitutions
- Salted butter. Unsalted butter works well. You can substitute up to half of the butter (¼ cup) with canola oil or even applesauce if you would like. For a dairy-free version use vegan butter (like Earth Balance) or coconut oil (however coconut oil will leave the muffins with a little coconut flavor)!
- Overripe Bananas. Buy some extra bananas and let them get extra brown just to make this recipe. If you use under-ripe bananas (yellow or greenish) your bread will lack moisture and sweetness.
- Granulated sugar. white granulated sugar and organic cane sugar work well in this recipe.
- Light brown sugar. Dark brown sugar and coconut sugar are good substitutes.
- All-purpose flour. Cake flour or bread flour can be used in place of all-purpose flour. For a gluten-free version use a 1:1 all-purpose gluten-free baking flour.
- Unsweetened cocoa powder. Choose your favorite variety. For extra-dark chocolate banana muffins use dark cocoa powder.
- Cinnamon. The little touch of cinnamon in this chocolate banana muffin recipe makes it extra special, you can omit it but I don’t recommend it.
- Chocolate chips. choose your favorite variety and darkness: milk chocolate, semi-sweet, dark, even white chocolate chips or peanut butter chips can be used to spice things up.
How to Make Chocolate Banana Muffins
This chocolate banana muffin recipe is easy to make in one bowl – but to ensure your success we’ll walk through the process step-by-step and don’t forget to watch the video!
Begin by whisking together the wet ingredients in a large bowl.
Then add the granulated sugar and brown sugar and until combined and the mixture is smooth.
Next, add flour, baking powder, baking soda, sea salt and cinnamon and stir until the mixture is smooth and uniform throughout.
Once the batter is smooth, gently fold in the chocolate chips (or your mix-ins of choice). Here are some suggestions:
- Chocolate Chips (milk, dark, light, etc.)
- Walnuts
- Pecans
- Cinnamon chips
- White chocolate chips
- Blueberries
- Dried fruit (cranberries, rasins, etc.)
- Swirl of peanut butter or Nutella
- Unsweetened coconut
Bake
Lightly grease two standard 12-cup muffin pans, or line the pans with cupcake liners and then grease. Place about ¼ cup of batter into each well of the prepared muffin pan, smooth the tops so they are even.
Bake in preheated oven for 13-15 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean.
These chocolate banana muffins are baked at 400 degrees F, and I find in my convection oven they only take 15 minutes to bake. I recommend checking them earlier if your oven bakes hot.
Cool in the baking pan on a wire rack for at least 10 minutes. Then, remove the muffins from the pan and transfer them to the wire cooling rack and let cool completely.
Note: you can also make chocolate banana bread! Yum!
Serve!
These chocolate banana muffins are delicious when served plain without any toppings or spreads, but here are some suggestions .
- Slather on some homemade peanut butter.
- Spread this homemade cinnamon honey butter over warm banana muffins for a special treat.
- Serve with some homemade vanilla almond butter.
Store/Freeze
Let the muffins cool completely, then store them in a single layer in an airtight container in the refrigerator for up to 1 week, or the freezer for up to 2 months.
Chocolate Banana Muffins Recipe FAQs
If these muffins aren’t moist it’s likely they were over-baked. Bake for a shorter amount of time. Also make sure to use full-fat ingredients, measure flour correctly and don’t make substitutions.
Even black bananas can be used to make these chocolate banana muffins! Just make sure they are not moldy.
To use frozen bananas in this recipe, thaw them first either by letting them sit out at room temperature or by warming them on low power in the microwave until they are just room temperature. Then use in the recipe as directed.
I suggest using this chocolate banana bread recipe – it’s delicious!
If you make and love my recipes, it would mean so much to me if you would leave a comment and rating! And don’t forget to follow along on Instagram, Pinterest, Facebook, TikTok and Youtube – be sure to tag @joyfoodsunshine and use the hashtag #joyfoodsunshine so I can see your creations!
Chocolate Banana Muffins
Ingredients
- ½ cup salted butter melted
- 4 overripe bananas – mashed 1 ½ cups
- 2 eggs beaten
- 2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
- ¾ cup granulated sugar
- ¼ cup light brown sugar packed
- 1 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
- ½ cup unsweetened cocoa powder
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon fine sea salt
- ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
- Grease or line 2 standard 12-cup muffin tins set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together melted butter, bananas, eggs and vanilla. Stir until combined.
- Add granulated sugar and brown sugar. Stir until combined and the mixture is smooth.
- Add flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, sea salt and cinnamon to the wet mixture and stir until the mixture is smooth and uniform throughout.
- Gently fold in the chocolate chips.
- Measure ¼ cup batter into each well of a muffin tin.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 13-15 minutes, or until the tops are set and a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffins comes out with a few moist crumbs.
- Cool in the baking pan on a wire rack for at least 10 minutes. Then, remove the muffins from the pan and transfer them to the wire cooling rack and let cool completely.
- Serve.
Video
Notes
- Salted butter. Unsalted butter works well. You can substitute up to half of the butter (¼ cup) with canola oil or even applesauce if you would like. For a dairy-free version use vegan butter (like Earth Balance) or coconut oil (however coconut oil will leave the bread with a little coconut flavor)!
- Granulated sugar. white granulated sugar and organic cane sugar work well in this recipe.
- Light brown sugar. Dark brown sugar and coconut sugar also work well.
- All-purpose flour. Cake flour or bread flour can be used in place of all-purpose flour. For a gluten-free version use a 1:1 all-purpose gluten-free baking flour.
- Chocolate chips. choose your favorite variety and darkness: milk chocolate, semi-sweet, dark, even white chocolate chips or peanut butter chips can be used to spice things up.
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
Incredible! I’ve made these a few times and they are always a hit. For some reason I always have all of these ingredients in my cabinets, so it works out! I really appreciate how straightforward and delicious your recipes are! *One side note is that I always half your 1x recipes because even the 1x is too much for our family of 4. Thank you so much for all that you do! Xox
Just a thought – if you made the full recipe you could freeze extras and have them for later! 🙂 I’m so glad you love these muffins!
Re: Chocolate Banana muffins
Laura, thank you for the inspiration for a few healthy substitutions that resulted in moist and rich tasting muffins. I substituted 1/4 c avacado oil and unsweetened apple sauce respectively for the 1/2 c butter. I used Swerve sugar instead of brown and regular sugar. And added an extra ripe banana and more cinnamon for extra rich flavor. These muffins were fantastic and the recipe was so easy!
I’m so happy you love them, Janet!
Wow this is the most moist muffin i have ever had, it is so airy and fluffy. So delicious not too sweet or too sweet just perfect. I don’t leave reviews or comments but I had to for this one just because it taste so good
Excellent muffins! Moist and very tasty especially if you love chocolate! I had made this recipe as loaves of bread for our church bake sale without tasting, but they should have been a hit!
I use your website exclusively when searching for a new recipe. That started a couple years ago when I made your Best Chocolate Chip Cookie recipe because my husband absolutely (and repeatedly) swears its the best CC cookie ever.
I’ve noticed the silicone cupcake liners seem to take longer to bake. I love the liners. Is there a general rule for altering the baketime with silicone liners?
Hello,
Is it possible to make mini muffins with this recipe by altering baking temperature and/or time?
Thanks!
This is the rare banana muffin that does not get a soggy top after a few days… they are excellent!