Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Photo courtesy of family.go.com

I attempted to make my own pumpkin spice latte earlier this week!  It was okay, not great!  But, perhaps with some tweaking I can improve it for my tastes.  Anyway, for the pumpkin base of the latte, I needed some pureed pumpkin.  SO, I opened an entire can for a mere 1/4 cup of puree.  Not wanting to waste such precious pumpkin, I looked through some Pinterest recipes I'd come across lately and decided to try these Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins.  They are really yummy and very simple!

Ingredients:

• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/4 cup sugar
• 1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons pumpkin-pie spice
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup mini chocolate chips, plus more for sprinkling on top 

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Grease a muffin tin or line with paper.

• In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, oil , eggs and sugar until well blended.
• In another bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda and salt. Add to the pumpkin mixture and whisk until just combined. Fold in the chocolate chips.
• Spoon batter into prepared muffin tin, filling each about 2/3 full. Sprinkle a few more chips on top of the muffins.
• Bake for 25-30 minutes* or until a toothpick, inserted in the middle of the muffin comes out clean. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove to a rack. 

*Since I have lots of little hands around, I decided to make some mini muffins.  I baked 2 dozen mini muffins and adjusted my baking time to approximately 23 minutes.  Start with about 18 minutes, then check for doneness.  After making the 2 dozen minis, I still had enough batter left to make 5 regular-sized muffins!  

Original post can be found here.