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These toasted hazelnut chocolate chip muffins are absolutely jam-packed with so much crunchy, nutty, chocolatey goodness. Made with buttermilk, these muffins are soft, delicate, and just so delicious. 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.

A wire cooling rack filled with freshly baked hazelnut chocolate chip muffins topped with oats, surrounded by small bowls of hazelnuts and chocolate chips. — Two people who tried tester muffins described them as "Ferrero Rocher" in muffin form."

The starting point for these toasted hazelnut chocolate chip muffins was this amazing hazelnut tea cake I made in my first chaotic week of pastry school. That recipe used Gianduja, a creamy hazelnut chocolate that is, unfortunately, hard to find for home-baking purposes. So when I decided to transform that tea cake into a homemade muffin recipe, I wanted to make sure the hazelnut and chocolate flavors were both equally pronounced.

Instead of Gianduja, I toasted whole hazelnuts and used mini chocolate chips for maximum chocolate distribution. And while the tea cake recipe used almond flour, I took some of those toasted hazelnuts and pulsed them in a food processor to make a hazelnut flour that really emphasizes that hazelnut flavor.

And making this chocolate chip muffin recipe with buttermilk gives them the most amazing, tender texture with crunchy hazelnut pieces and plenty of chocolate, too.

A vertical stack of three hazelnut chocolate chip muffins in paper liners, surrounded by scattered chocolate chips and hazelnuts. — Hazelnut City, population: these muffins.

I used Blanched, Peeled Hazelnuts

Buying hazelnuts that already have the skins removed saves a ton of time. They can sometimes be hard to find in stores, I often order them online or get them at specialty bulk-bin stores. 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 so that the the pale hazelnut flesh takes on a golden brown color.

And while I do make my own hazelnut flour from the toasted hazelnuts for this homemade muffin recipe, you can also just use hazelnut flour. Consider toasting it on a sheet pan in the oven at 350°F for 5-10 minutes before use to really bring out the flavor.

Why I Use buttermilk in muffins

I decided to make this hazelnut chocolate chip muffin recipe with buttermilk because buttermilk is acidic and helps activate the baking soda to give these muffins a really nice rise. That acidity also helps break down some of the gluten-forming proteins in the flour, which makes the muffins extra soft and tender.

If you don't have buttermilk on hand, I recommend adding 1 tablespoon dry buttermilk powder to the dry ingredients and replacing the buttermilk with whole milk.

the secret to TALL, TENDER MUFFINS

I use the muffin method of mixing to make this homemade muffin recipe (and all my delicious muffin recipes, tbh). It's so simple. I mix the dry ingredients in one bowl and the wet ingredients (including the sugar) in another bowl. Then I gently fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients just until combined.

In fact, I stop mixing when there are just a few streaks of visible flour to add the chopped hazelnut pieces and mini chocolate chips. I know the remaining flour will finish incorporating in as I fold them in, so I don't over mix.

Muffin batter is lumpy and clumpy. That's okay! It should be! The lumps will bake out in the oven.

Letting the muffin batter rest before portioning it out gives the baking soda and baking powder time to begin activating, which helps produce super tall muffins. You'll notice I also do this in other muffin recipes like my mini lemon blueberry muffins; it really does make such a difference!
Bringing the ingredients to the proper temperatures before mixing also helps produce tall, tender muffins. Cold eggs and cold buttermilk mean flat, dense muffins!
I only fill every other muffin tin (so I'm only baking 6 muffins in my 12-well standard sized muffin pan) which gives plenty of room for steam to escape from the top of each muffin without collapsing the top of the muffin next to it.
I use a large OXO cookie scoop to portion my muffin batter into the tins. Each muffin is about 3½ tablespoons of batter and each well of the tin should be about ⅔ of the way full.

A chocolate chip and hazelnut muffin broken in half on a white plate with a fork, surrounded by loose hazelnut chocolate chip muffin ingredients.

💭 Have More Baking Questions?

I've rounded up answers to common baking questions and how-to guides, including:

Ingredient swaps and FAQs
Why my recipes are written in grams and not cups
How to quickly bring eggs and butter to room temperature
Ingredients I use (salt, flour, yeast, etc.)
Step-by-step guides for bread and baking techniques

See my baking techniques & troubleshooting guide and ingredient swaps and FAQs for more!

📖 Recipe

a close up of a muffin on two small dessert plates

Hazelnut Chocolate Chip Buttermilk Muffins

Servings muffins

Author Rebecca Eisenberg

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 40

Cook Time 20

Resting time 30

Total Time 1 30

Recipe Notes

To get eggs to room temperature quickly place them in a bowl of very hot water for 5-10 minutes.
To get buttermilk to room temperature quickly microwave in 5-7 second bursts, stirring in between.
If you're using a large food processor or blender to make the hazelnut flour be careful — if run them too long they'll turn into hazelnut butter! Stop once it looks like flour.
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.

Ingredients

170 grams blanched hazelnuts
170 grams all-purpose flour
85 grams sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon diamond crystal kosher salt
113 grams buttermilk (room temperature)
113 grams unsalted butter (melted)
2 large eggs (room temperature)
85 grams mini chocolate chips
additional sugar (for topping)
quick-cooking rolled oats (optional, for topping)

Instructions

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Arrange hazelnuts on a sheet pan and toast until dark golden brown 15-20 minutes, shaking the pan every 5 minutes so they don’t burn. Remove from the oven and let cool slightly.
Weigh 57 grams of the toasted hazelnuts into the bowl of a mini food processor. Process until the hazelnuts are a very fine powder, almost like a nut flour. Transfer to a large mixing bowl and set aside.
Rough chop the remaining hazelnuts and set aside (these will get mixed in later). This can be a fairly large chop; you don’t want any whole hazelnuts, but halves and quarters are fine.
To the ground hazelnuts in the mixing bowl, add all-purpose flour, salt, baking powder, and baking soda and whisk to combine.
In another bowl, whisk together eggs, sugar, and buttermilk. Then pour in the melted butter, whisking constantly. Whisk vigorously until very well combined.

The butter will firm up if the egg and buttermilk are too cold so make sure they’re truly lukewarm before you add the butter!

Use a dough whisk or a spatula to gently fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients in as few movements as possible to avoid over mixing. When there are a few streaks of flour still visible, add the chopped hazelnuts and mini chocolate chips. Continue folding just until no dry bits remain and the inclusions are evenly distributed. Do not over mix.
Preheat oven to 350°F. Cover the muffin batter and let it sit for 30 minutes at room temperature.
Line a standard muffin tin with paper liners. Use a large cookie scoop to divide the batter between the tins so each one is about ⅔ of the way full. You may have extra batter; divide it between the tins or into any that need a bit more.

I fill every other muffin tin (so I'm only baking 6 muffins in my 12-well muffin pan) which gives plenty of room for steam to escape from each muffin without collapsing the top of the muffin next to it.

Top each muffin with ½ teaspoon granulated sugar (mandatory) and quick rolled oats (optional).
Bake 20-22 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.
Let cool 5-10 minutes in the pan before transferring to a cooling rack to finish cooling completely.

Video

Desserts Muffins Chocolate Hazelnut No-mixer

Comments

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