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Gluten Free Chocolate Muffins: rich, deep dark vegan chocolate muffins with a beautiful rise. Dairy-Free.
Okay, so who’s excited for the new year? I mean, we could totally use a fresh start, amiright?? Are you already crossing ALL the new year’s resolutions off of your list (woah) or, like me, still letting a few percolate, while the others are pretty much lost causes?
A few years back, one of my new year’s resolutions was to share more tasty and secretly healthy muffins with you. And guess what? Today’s gluten free chocolate muffins fit the bill, like woah!
Today’s recipe not only qualifies as vegan chocolate muffins, but also as gluten free dairy free muffins. Yaaaaaas! These chocolate muffins are refined sugar-free, and made with whole ingredients. Plus, they’re downright tasty.
Are you ready to bake this? Let’s do it!
How to Make Gluten Free Chocolate Muffins
Preheat
First things first, make sure to preheat your oven to 350°F. Then, drop a muffin liner into each cup of your 12-cup muffin pan.
Sift the Dry Ingredients
Using a large bowl, sift together all of the dry ingredients: oat flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.
Heat
Because we’re working with coconut oil, we gotta make sure that we don’t expose it to anything cold—here’s looking at you, milk + water! So let’s heat our dairy-free milk and water together until just warm.
Whisk the Wet Ingredients
Now, let’s add the warm milk + water and the rest of the wet ingredients to a medium mixing bowl. Whisk it altogether until well incorporated. Congrats! You just made your gluten free chocolate muffin batter. So easy, right?
Pour Batter
Pour your vegan chocolate muffins batter into the muffin pan you prepared earlier. Fill each cup up about ¾ of the way for a higher quantity of smaller muffins, or all the way for a lower quantity of large muffins!
Bake, Cool, and Enjoy!
Bake vegan chocolate muffins for about 30 minutes. Cool and enjoy the best gluten free chocolate muffins ever!
More Muffins We Love: Vegan Pumpkin Muffins | Vegan Gluten Free Blueberry Muffins | Gluten Free Banana Oat Muffins (Vegan) | Best Ever Healthy Chocolate Chip Muffins
Storing and Freezing Vegan Chocolate Muffins
Room Temperature
After completely cooling your vegan chocolate muffins, place them into an airtight container and store them in a cool, dark environment. You can keep your vegan chocolate muffins for up to 1 week.
Freezer
These gluten free chocolate muffins freeze well. Just remember to cool your muffins completely, then tuck them into a freezer-friendly container. Keep dairy free muffins for 1-2 months.
Testimonials
Jo says, “I have tried so many healthy recipes from different blogs over the past 2-3 years (banana bread, vegan cheesecake, muffins of all sorts), but this recipe has got to be one of my best baking adventures. The muffins are moist, dark, fudgy, and delicious. I did use olive oil instead of coconut oil, and it still worked. Thank you, queen.”
Jaclyn says, “Delicious!!!!! Fluffy and a hint of sweet! These will be going in my muffin rotation!!”
Pashlee says, “My kids loved these! I swapped some of the cocoa powder for protein powder and used monk fruit instead of coconut sugar.”
Mel says, “I just baked these for the 2nd time and they are delicious! I’m looking for a coconut cream frosting to make for the top this time. Last time we just drizzled a bit of maple syrup on top–yummy! Thank you!!”
Jen says, “Great recipe! Subbed out the oil for applesauce. Doubled the recipe & it made 20. Thank you for a quick & easy recipe.”
An easy recipe for deep, dark vegan chocolate muffins made with gluten free, dairy free ingredients.
Great Tools for the Best Vegan Chocolate Muffins
- Raw Cacao Powder – my favorite, nutritent-rich cacao powder. It works just like the traditional unsweetened cocoa powder you know, but it’s packed with nutrients. This raw cacao powder is so high-quality and boasts deep, rich chocolate flavor.
- Unbleached Muffin Liners – my go-to muffin liners. These guys stick just the right amount to your muffins so they stay on while the muffins cool. Bonus? They’re unbleached!
- Coconut Sugar – a staple in my gluten free vegan baking pantry. I use coconut sugar to keep the recipe refined sugar-free.
So whaddya say, wanna join me in new year’s reso-luting the fudge out of homemade vegan chocolate muffins this year? 🙂 I’m so grateful to share in these joyful kitchen adventures with you and your loved ones. ‘Til the next one…
Sending you all my love and maybe even a dove, xo Demeter ❤️
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Gluten Free Muffins & Vegan Muffins We Love
- Healthy Pumpkin Oatmeal Muffins (Vegan, Gluten Free)
- Easy Vegan Gluten Free Pumpkin Muffins Recipe
- Paleo Gluten Free Chocolate Muffins (Grain Free)
- Vegan Healthy Banana Blueberry Muffins
- Gluten Free Banana Muffins
- 25+ Absolute BEST Vegan Muffins
- Chocolate Orange Muffins (Vegan)
- …and Chocolate Espresso Martini, just for fun
Gluten Free Vegan Dark Chocolate Muffins Recipe (Dairy Free)
Ingredients
Dry Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups gluten free oat flour – if using homemade, make sure it’s very finely ground (not coarse)*
- 1 cup unsweetened cocoa powder, not dutch processed
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon salt
Wet Ingredients
- ½ cup + 2 tablespoons water
- ½ cup non-dairy milk
- 3 tablespoons melted coconut oil
- ¼ cup coconut sugar
- ¼ cup pure maple syrup
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350°F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with cupcake liners. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, sift together the dry ingredients: oat flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt.
- Add water and milk to a microwave-safe bowl. Heat in 10-second increments until just warm. This will prevent the melted coconut oil from solidifying once mixed with these liquids.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together all wet ingredients: water, milk, coconut oil, sugar, maple syrup and extract. Whisk until well incorporated.
- Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients. Whisk until just incorporated, making sure no flour patches remain.
- Pour batter evenly into prepared muffin pan—fill ¾ of the way for about 12 smaller muffins; fill all the way for 9-10 larger muffins with big, high tops.
- Bake for 16-20 minutes. Mine took 18 minutes. Place muffin pan on a cooling rack to cool for 30 minutes. Remove muffins from muffin pan and continue cooling on rack until completely cool, 1-3 hours. Enjoy! Storing instructions below.
Notes
© beamingbaker.com. All content and images are protected by copyright. Please do not use my images or recipe without my permission. Please do not republish this recipe, instead, include a link to this post for the recipe.
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Hi Julia! You can use any kind of non-dairy milk (oat, cashew, coconut milk from a carton and not a can), or you can use regular milk if that works for you. Happy baking!
Hi I have no sub for milk ! What can I use ? Thanks
Hi Julia! You can use any kind of non-dairy milk (oat, cashew, coconut milk from a carton and not a can), or you can use regular milk if that works for you. Happy baking!
I’m so happy that the recipe is going to be helpful for you and your little one, Olivia! I know how frustrating it can be trying to navigate allergies and special diets, so I’m sending you all the positivity and good vibes! 😊
I’m so happy that the recipe is going to be helpful for you and your little one, Olivia! I know how frustrating it can be trying to navigate allergies and special diets, so I’m sending you all the positivity and good vibes! 😊
The recipe I’ve been looking for! Made them exactly the same except I used avocado oil instead of coconut oil (only because coconut sometimes gives me indigestion) however they came out PERFECT! I was in search of a simple vegan/gf chocolate muffin recipe for my 2yr old who has all the allergies. He qualifies for a baked milk challenge and I needed a recipe that called for non dairy milk so I can switch it to regular milk for the food challenge and this fit the bill perfectly and he loves them so much so I know he will eat them when we do the challenge at the allergist office. THANK YOU!! Big deal for this mama and I also love eating them as well as my husband! Win win!
I’m so happy that the recipe is going to be helpful for you and your little one, Olivia! I know how frustrating it can be trying to navigate allergies and special diets, so I’m sending you all the positivity and good vibes! 😊
Hi Demeter. These didn’t work for me at all. The batter was really thick and sticky and they didn’t rise. The only thing I changed was not putting in the coconut sugar. But my kids were “helping” so maybe the measurements weren’t quite right. They loved the taste of the mixture!
Hi Sarah. Did you leave the coconut sugar out completely? Omitting sweetener in a baked recipe like this is definitely going to affect the consistency of the batter because it’s such a key element. Also, I’ve totally been there with little ones “helping” on a recipe and not knowing exactly how much “help” they were giving. 😂 If you try it again, I would recommend making it exactly as the recipe states, and let me know how it goes!
My batter was also thick and sticky and I didn’t have my child helping me on this one! I added some applesauce to the mix to soften up the mixture. I also ground my own oats using my food processor and the flour wasn’t coarse, but it’s also not nearly as ‘fine’ as what you would get from a bag bought from the store. So, I don’t know if the oat flour is the reason for the thickness? Either way, the muffins turned out okay and rose in the baking process. The only other thing is I used raw cacao powder and I have baked with this many times before, but for this particular recipe, the muffins tasted a bit bitter. I still used the recipe’s callings for maple syrup and coconut palm sugar, so maybe next time cocoa powder would be less bitter? I just prefer the antioxidants in raw cacao powder, so I’m not too upset about having used this.
I made these for my brother, who is a chocolate lover, and they were a hit! I used 1/2 cup of maple syrup instead of adding the coconut sugar because I didn’t have any and they still turned out great. I will definitely be making these again thank you!
So sweet of you to make these for your brother! 🙂 I’m really glad to hear they turned out well with the maple syrup sub, too. Happy baking!
Hi curious if I can make these with Cacao instead of cocoa powder?
Hi Tiffany! Yes, using raw cacao powder should be fine here. 🙂 Happy baking!
Wow, these muffins were so good! They actually have a good chocolate flavor (something that I have a hard time finding in chocolate cake recipes), and the texture is tender. Only sub was to use Dutch processed cocoa; when doing this swap you use baking powder instead of soda and double the amount. Worked great.
Woohoo!! I’m so happy to hear it, Rikke! You know we don’t mess around with BIG chocolate flavor here at BB. 😉 Thanks for noting the sub & adjustment, so helpful!
This looks so good! Excited to try it this weekend. Thrilled to have your website with so many gluten free/vegan dessert recipes. Want to try them all!!
Thanks Sooki! Hope you enjoy the muffins, and can’t wait to see what you try next! 🙂
In this recipe, Gluten Free Vegan Dark Chocolate Muffins Recipe, can I use Hershey 100% Cacao Natural Unsweetened? It doesn’t say “Dutch process.” The ingredient list= COCOA. Want to make sure this is ok before I start. Also, is it ok to use oat milk? Thank you!
Hi Heather! As long as it’s not Dutch process it should be fine. And I haven’t tried oat milk in the recipe, but it should be okay as well. Let me know how they turn out!