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A little sweeter than your average muffin, not sweet enough to be a cupcake, these Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins are more like a snackable treat straying into healthy territory. This big batch muffin recipe is quickly devoured without any need for spread or frosting. Made with pumpkin, flavored with pumpkin pie spice and chocolate chips, this easy recipe can be made with your favorite oil or melted butter or applesauce.

This recipe was collected in church recipe exchange years ago. There are other muffin recipes out there, even pumpkin chocolate chip, but these taste like a delicious snack cake. They are a traditional food for our family Christmas Movie Marathon in November. Eli has had to give himself a muffin-eating limitation of only one muffin per movie.

Picking an oil

I have successfully used vegetable oil, melted butter and applesauce in this recipe, and each has a slightly different result.

I love to use applesauce! The muffins are yummy and moist. But the texture can get a little rubbery the longer they sit. The applesauce method provides a healthy, low-fat option that I enjoy if we’ll be eating the muffins right away. Also, when using applesauce, you will need to grease your muffin papers to prevent them from sticking.

If I plan to make my muffins a day ahead or if they won’t be eaten in one day, I usually opt for oil or melted butter. Some oils have a strong flavor that comes through. I have used vegetable oil, but I suppose that coconut oil would also be a great option. Melted butter has nice flavor, but I feel like the muffins dry out more quickly than with oil. For this Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin recipe, be sure that your oil is in liquid form.

Freezing Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Every version of this muffin freezes well!

Half-Batch Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Because this recipe makes 30 muffins, I have made Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins in a half batch several times. Instead of using a can of pumpkin, you obviously need half a can which may be hard to use anywhere else. (Try sneaking a little into spaghetti or chili.) Measuring one cup of pumpkin will work for a half batch recipe, but that is slightly more than truly half of the pumpkin in a fifteen ounce can. And believe it or not, using half a can rather than one cup seems to make the muffins taste better! Somewhere between 7/8 and a full cup measurement works best. If you feel like being that picky. Another option is, of course, to place half your pumpkin in a freezable container or small freezer Ziploc and freeze it for the next batch of Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins.

The One-Bowl Method

Muffin recipes typically require two bowls – one for the dry ingredients, one for the wet ingredients, and then you mix the two together. And there is a very good reason for this – you want to have your ingredients well incorporated without overmixing. Once those wet ingredients hit the dry ingredients, the leavenings will be activated and gluten is in danger of being overly activated.

Muffins are kinda my thing. But being a lazy genius is also kinda my thing. So with my many muffin makings I’ve developed my own lazy, one-bowl method. It goes something like this:

In a large bowl, whisk together wet ingredients. Sprinkle flour over the mixture. Sprinkle remaining dry ingredients over the top of the flour. With a spoon or your fingers, gently stir dry ingredients together. Then with a large spoon gently stir the wet and dry ingredients together just until moistened. Do not overmix.

Your quantity of flour will always be greater than your other dry ingredients so sprinkling it over the wet ingredients first creates a barrier from other dry ingredients. Mixing the other dry ingredients into the top layer of flour satisfies the need of even distribution. From there you simply fold the wet and dry together until all the dry ingredients are wet.

So I hope you will add Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins to your fall line-up of pumpkin flavored favorites! Like us, you may decide to be baking them well into the holiday season! Please don’t be shy; share your comments below.