As soon as there’s a slight nip in the air, my children start asking me to make my pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. I first made these muffins for a kindergarten party, and even now that my kids in their teens, they still ask me to make them like some sort of seasonal ritual! They are delicious and moist and, as with most of my recipes, lend themselves to putting your own spin on them, such as adding nuts or white chocolate chips. One change I made a while back, that I encourage you to stick with is using melted butter. I once heard a trick that if you melt butter you can use HALF of the required amount, reducing fat. But this only works with quickbreads and muffins! You won’t be able to tell the difference.
Harvest Pumpkin and Chocolate Muffins
Makes 12 regular or 48 mini muffins
Ingredients:
Mix the wet and dry ingredients for Harvest Pumpkin and Chocolate muffins.
1 2/3 cups unbleached, all purpose flour. (You can also do half all purpose and half whole wheat flour.)
3/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup of plain pumpkin puree
1/4 cup butter, melted
6 ounces (1 cup) chocolate or white chocolate chips (or do half and half)
Optional – 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
Method:
Heat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease muffin cups or use paper or silicone inserts.
Make sure there aren’t any lumps of dry ingredients as you mix the batter.
Mix the dry ingredients in one large bowl and the wet ingredients in a smaller bowl. If using chips and nuts, add them to the wet mixture and blend thoroughly to evenly-distribute them. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredient bowl and mix thoroughly.
Spoon the batter into the muffin cups. They don’t rise a lot so you can fill them almost to the top. Bake them 20-25 minutes or until they are puffed up and feel a little springy when you gently push on the crown of the muffin. Let the muffins cool, out of the muffin tin, on a rack. They are delicious warm, with the melty chocolate but they are even better in the day or two after, when the flavors have melded and the chips solidify adding bites of fudginess to the soft, bready muffin.
Ta da! A “bountiful” bunch of Harvest Pumpkin and Chocolate Muffins. It’s the perfect thing for fall.
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