Filled with a light and creamy coffee flavor, these thick and fluffy, bakery style, gluten-free and dairy-free Cappuccino Muffins are a great brunch or weekend breakfast!
Do you like coffee?
I feel like if you are on Mile High Mitts right now, looking at this recipe, then the answer is a resounding YES MAM!!
Which is good, because I do too! 🙂
I oddly grew up with parents that didn’t drink coffee, until I was in college! I learned how to drink coffee in high school, thanks to my friends and Starbucks.
Now, as a Mom of a 2 and 4 year old, a hot cup of coffee is my best friend. My morning coffee is my favorite “Mom ritual” now. Something about a hot cup of coffee in the morning is so soothing – and trust me, I don’t talk much till I’ve drank mine.
So, why not put some coffee into some muffins for an extra soothing and energizing breakfast?! Done, done and done!
These gluten-free Cappuccino Muffins are made with a light coffee flavor, so you can still eat one while drinking your coffee and not be totally overwhelmed by coffee!
They’re thick and fluffy, bakery style, with mile high tops and chocolate chips throughout.
If you need a fun brunch muffin for a ladies get-together, or just want to bake up something fun for breakfast for yourself this weekend.. grab some espresso powder and get to making these muffins!
This muffin recipe is based off of my Blueberry Muffin recipe.
It’s a great easy recipe for some tall, bakery style muffins. Different than my usual super moist and oat-flour based muffins, like my Apple Cinnamon Oat Muffins.
The key to making these muffins super tall is how you bake them!
You’ll start with your oven at 425 and bake them for 5 minutes. Then, you’ll need to turn your oven down to 350 and bake them for another 17-19 minutes. Or till the tops have set, and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
The other key to these Cappuccino Muffins is, of course, instant espresso powder.
I like using espresso powder because you can always add more flavor to your milk (for your muffin batter) with extra espresso powder if you’d like. If you just use strongly brewed coffee, you can’t make the flavor any stronger.
So the best thing to do is to warm your milk up (in a microwave safe bowl) and then whisk in your espresso powder. If you want a more strong coffee flavor in these muffins, instead of 1 tbsp you can add 1 1/2 tbsp.
Last but not least, chocolate chips.
You can add them or you can leave them out. They almost give these muffins a bit of a mocha feel, but I think you’d need some cocoa powder to truly make them Mocha Muffins.
I love taking a bite and having pockets of melty chocolate that go so well with the coffee flavor. It gives these muffins a chocolate cappuccino type feel. But, the choice is yours!
I would recommend semi-sweet, milk, dark or dairy-free chocolate chips.
Thick, fluffy, filled with coffee flavor and pops of chocolate, these Cappuccino Muffins are undeniably delicious!
If you need more muffin recipes, I’ve got tons! A few healthier options are my Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Oat Muffins, Banana Nut Oat Muffins, and Orange Carrot Oat Muffins.
- 1 3/4 cup gluten-free all purpose flour
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 cup milk (or almond milk)
- 1- 1 1/2 tbsp instant espresso powder
- 1/2 cup butter (or coconut oil)
- 3/4 cup white sugar
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 cup milk or semi-sweet chocolate chips, optional (or dairy-free)
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To begin, preheat your oven to 425 and line a muffin pan with 10 cupcake liners (or spray with non-stick spray).
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To a medium sized mixing bowl, add your flour, cinnamon, baking soda and salt and stir them together.
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In a microwave safe bowl, add your milk and microwave till warm. Add your espresso powder to your milk and whisk it in till it's well combined.
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In a large sized mixing bowl, add your butter and sugar and blend them together with a beater for a couple minutes, or till they're creamy. Add your eggs and espresso milk and blend together again, till combined.
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Pour your dry ingredients into your large bowl of wet ingredients. Stir everything together till you have a thick muffin batter. Gently fold in your chocolate chips, if using.
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Fill your muffin cavities to the top with muffin batter. Bake in the oven for 5 minutes. Then, reduce your oven temperature to 350 and bake for another 12-17 minutes, or till the tops are springy to touch and a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
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Let cool. Devour!
Stored in an airtight container these muffins last about 4-5 days on the counter, or a week in the fridge.
These were soooooooo amazing!! I added more coffee, used half milk half coconut milk, and half butter half oil. It was very good tasting and texture was great, I will for sure save this recipe! Thank you!
The muffins have great flavor but were a bit dry. I’m going to take one of the previous suggestions and sub 1/4 cup yogurt for 1/4 cup milk.
Also – I used chocolate chunks that were too heavy and sank to the bottom.
Even though they didn’t turn out as planned the overall flavor was amazing so I will definitely try baking them again soon 🙂
I made these df/gf/sugar free (used coconut oil, almond milk, Krusteaz GF Flour blend, Miss Jones SmartSugar blend) and found they were done way before the time indicated. Like maybe after 10 minutes at 350. Although the flavor was nice and the Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips were a nice surprise, they were dry. I’m thinking adding a T. of extra “milk” and baking only half the required time might do it. The rise was incredible and since I’m at high altitude that’s always a plus. What other changes would you make to increase the moisture? Perhaps sub some almond flour in for the gf flour? Could I use df sour cream in the recipe somehow or would that affect the rise?
Hi Diane. I think adding df sour cream or df yogurt would be a great idea (I’d try 1/4 cup of milk and 1/4 cup of sour cream instead of 1/2 cup of milk first). Hopefully that will give them some extra moisture, especially while using a thinner dairy-free milk. I’m also worried your sugar blend could be impacting the moisture – I don’t know enough about baking without sugar though. Hopefully the sour cream/yogurt would do the trick!
Thanks, I was also wondering about the sugar blend. So many I know are off dairy and white sugar as well as gluten it gets daunting trying to create foods for them.
What types of brands of instant espresso powder would you recommend??!!
Oops typo I meant to say which brands would you recommend
Hi Courtney. I love to use Cafe Bustelo. They have little single coffee packets which I love for baking with!
Not gluten free so I made this with whole wheat flour. Still came out amazing. Only thing I am going to change next time is it had a little too much cinnamon for my preference, but great recipe thanks for sharing.
Thanks for the comment, Connie! I do love *extra* cinnamon, so a little less makes sense.
Really lovely recipe – and so easy too! I loved how moist they turned yet they still had their appropriate muffin texture. That’s not always easy with GF flour! I added a teaspoon of maple syrup to my mixture. Thanks for sharing your baking wisdom!
Thank you, Maria, for letting me know! Love hearing that!
Love this recipe! So quick and easy and the chocolate chips with the coffee is super yum. Will definitely use this recipe again.
Even my hubby who does not like GF food and baked goodies ate them like a starved man.
Thank you so much for the feedback, Liezel! Love hearing that.
Just wondering if you could make these with regular flour? Almond flour? And use monk fruit for sweetener. Opposite ends in flour I know. I bake for a grainfree person and a sugar free person.
Hi Ruth. You could also make these muffins with regular flour, but almond flour would not work in it’s place (almond flour needs more binders, like egg, and also typically less butter/oil). I’m also not sure about monk fruit, I haven’t used it so I can’t say. Sorry! Hope this helps some.