Toasted Hazelnut Chocolate Chip Muffins

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These toasted hazelnut chocolate chip muffins are absolutely jam-packed packed with so much crunchy, nutty chocolatey goodness. They're really easy to make, and use freshly toasted hazelnuts in two different ways to make sure that toasty, hazelnut-y flavor is present in every single bite.

Two people who tried tester muffins described them as "Ferrero Rocher in muffin form," so if that sounds appealing to you, you're in the right place.

an overhead shot of muffins on a cooling rack. some have been turned on their sides.

This recipe for toasted hazelnut chocolate chip muffins actually started as a hazelnut tea cake I made in my first chaotic week of pastry school. That recipe used Gianduja, a creamy hazelnut chocolate that is super hard to find for home baking purposes. It had a very soft, delicate cake-like crumb, and was so, so good.

I've been wanting to develop a muffin recipe for a while now and when I was thinking about my perfect muffin flavor, I just kept coming back to how much I loved that tea cake.

I've adapted that original recipe so much at this point they barely resemble each other, but the chocolate and hazelnut inspiration hasn't gone anywhere. In fact, it's even more pronounced in these toasted hazelnut chocolate chip muffins than it was in the original tea cake.

Instead of Gianduja chocolate, we're stirring in toasted hazelnuts and mini chocolate chips. Instead of a tender, cake-like texture, we have the larger, more crumbly texture you expect from muffins.

And while the original recipe used a bit of almond flour, we're pulverizing a portion of the toasted hazelnuts to make a hazelnut flour that will really emphasize the toasted hazelnut flavor that gives these toasted hazelnut chocolate chip muffins their name.

That's in addition to the chunky toasted hazelnuts that get stirred in with the mini chocolate chips at the end.

So yeah. Hazelnut City, population: these muffins.

a stack of three muffins. hazelnuts and mini chocolate chips are on the counter around it.

the secret to mixing muffin batter

If you've ever made muffins that had weird tunnel-like cavities inside after baking, that means you over mixed your batter.

Gluten development is the enemy of tender muffins — gluten creates structure and the batter will tighten up and trap air when the muffins bake. That's what causes the tunnels. You don't want that!

When you add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, your goal is to combine them in as few movements as possible. The perfect time to add your mix-ins (that's chopped hazelnuts and mini chocolate chips here) is right before the wet ingredients and dry ingredients are fully combined.

Add the chopped hazelnuts and mini chocolate chips when you can still see some of the dry mixture in the bowl — the dry ingredients will finish mixing in as you stir in the nuts and chocolate.

As soon as the hazelnuts and chocolate chips are evenly distributed and there's no dry bits left, stop mixing!

A final note: Muffin batter is lumpy and clumpy — that's okay. The lumps will bake out in the oven.

a few quick recipe notes

Blanched, peeled hazelnuts work best for these muffins. These are the hazelnuts I usually order online. If you can only find hazelnuts with skins on, you'll need to remove the skins by rolling the toasted nuts around in a clean towel until the skins fall off. You may need to toast them again after you remove the skins — you want the pale flesh to be a deep golden brown color.

Instead of making your own hazelnut flour with a mini food processor you can use hazelnut flour.

TEMPERATURES MATTER. If the eggs and buttermilk are cold or even just cool when you stir in the melted butter, the butter will begin to firm up. You will get a very different texture than if you stir the melted butter into room temperature eggs and buttermilk. See FAQ (below) for how to get eggs and buttermilk to room temp fast.

I use a large OXO cookie scoop to portion my muffin batter into the tins.

My fave muffin tin is this 12-well standard sized muffin pan by USA Pan (they're based in my hometown of Pittsburgh!). It's super easy to clean and I like the wide rim which makes it easy to pull in and out of the oven without accidentally digging a thumb into your muffins. These cupcake liners fit in that tin perfectly.

The 30 minute resting period after you finish mixing gives the baking powder time to activate and helps the muffins rise in the oven. Technically this step is optional; you can bake them right away, but you'll get better results if you let the batter rest first.

If you're making JUMBO muffins, this recipe makes about 6 muffins and they'll need to bake for 25-30 minutes — after 25 minutes start checking every 2 mins until a toothpick comes out clean.

To get a nice crunchy top, you'll want a generous sprinkling of granulated sugar over the top of each muffin before baking. I tried these with turbinado sugar (aka raw sugar) too, but the raw sugar made the tops sticky and moist. I prefer the crispy crunchy top you get from the granulated sugar.

The rolled oat topping is optional, but if you decide to go for it make sure you're using QUICK COOKING rolled oats. Regular rolled oats won't soften enough in the oven and are unpleasant to eat. I had some quick cooking rolled oats in my pantry and sprinkled them on top of one muffin batch and they added such a nice nutty flavor and texture to the muffin tops that I couldn't not include that as an option. But if you don't already have them on hand, it's definitely not necessary to go out and buy them just for these muffins.

a muffin that's been split open on a small plate with a fork beside it. the inside is filled with chocolate chips and large hazelnut chunks.

recipe FAQ

I don't have a cookie scoop, what can I use to make sure my batter is portioned evenly?

Each muffin is about 3½ tablespoons of batter and each well of the tin should be about ⅔ of the way full.

Can I use a blender to make the hazelnut flour?

Yes. Just be careful with the blender — some blenders are designed to make nut butters. Don't let the blender run for too long or that's where you'll end up!

Do I have to use buttermilk? What can I use instead?

After baking so much with real buttermilk in pastry school I can tell you the results you get using buttermilk hacks like this just aren't great. I do recommend using real buttermilk to make these. If you absolutely can't find it, the next best substitute is plain, whole milk yogurt (not Greek yogurt)... but your muffins will be a little more dense than if you used buttermilk.

Can I use regular chocolate chips instead of mini chocolate chips?

The reason I used mini chocolate chips is because they're lighter and less likely to sink to the bottom of the muffins. You can certainly use regular chocolate chips, I'm not going to show up at your house and smack them out of your hands (it's a free world, etc, etc), but if they sink to the bottom of the muffins and you're unhappy about that well... don't blame me!

How do I get my eggs and buttermilk to room temperature quickly?

Put the eggs in a bowl of very hot tap water for 5-10 minutes. For the buttermilk you can microwave it in 5-7 second bursts, stirring in between until it's lukewarm to the touch.

I don't have a kitchen scale, can I still make these?

I usually do try to provide measurements in cups with my baking recipes, but measuring by volume is deeply inconsistent and you might not get great results. The measurements also didn't translate neatly to volumetric measurements and I was ending up with a lot of 1 and 2/7th of a cup measurements and I really didn't feel like doing more math. So if you'd like to go ahead and convert this all to cups you're welcome to do so on your own time. Or, you can buy a kitchen scale — they're very inexpensive and will make you a much better baker!

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