Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins

Pumpkin, pumpkin, pumpkin. It’s in the air, it’s in your food, and it’s possibly all over your social media pages. The good news: we only have to deal with it till the end of November. The bad news: we only have until the end of November to enjoy all of the pumpkin-y goodness. (What can I say? Pumpkin and I have a love-hate relationship.)

If you’ve been reading my breakfast posts, you know I’ve been banned from making pumpkin breakfasts. Well, because of my awesome pumpkin crepe recipe that I made for dinner a couple weeks ago, I thought I was allowed to make pumpkin breakfasts again. Apparently I was wrong; Kyle just hates pumpkin (unless it’s made into dessert).

Oh well. Mom and I still loved this week’s pumpkin breakfast.

I found this recipe on pinterest and knew I had to try it. I mean, it had pumpkin AND chocolate. However, I can’t make anything without giving the recipe my own little tweak. So here’s my spin on the recipe:

First, gather your ingredients. This includes your basics like flour, eggs, and vanilla. But it also has some unexpected ingredients like stevia, applesauce, and Greek yogurt.

Mix up the dry ingredients in a large bowl, save for the chocolate chips (these come in later). Now, if you’ve been reading my breakfast posts, you know that I’ve been mixing up the dry ingredients the night before to save time. Well, this week I forgot to do that. (Thankfully I was awake enough to complete the full recipe.)

In a separate bowl, mix up your wet ingredients.

When the wet ingredients are mixed together, add the dry ingredients. Stir until combined.

Once the ingredients are all combined, carefully stir in the chocolate chips.

Line a muffin tin with papers and spray the papers with nonstick cooking spray (or just spray the tin and forget the papers). Pour enough batter into each cup until it’s about 2/3 of the way full. Then bake until done, let cool for a few minutes, and enjoy the deliciousness.

They are warm, fluffy, and the chocolate chips melt in your mouth. I am addicted and I cannot fathom how my brother can't like them. But then again, we don’t agree on a lot of things.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins

Ingredients

3 eggs

½ cup nonfat plain Greek yogurt

16 oz pumpkin puree

¾ cup milk (I used 2%)

1 ½ cups unsweetened applesauce

½ tsp vanilla

1 ½ cups whole wheat flour

1 ½ cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking soda

2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp cinnamon

½ tsp salt

1 ½ tsp liquid stevia
1 Tbsp brown sugar

1 tsp pumpkin pie spice

8 oz dark chocolate chips

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix the dry ingredients (except for the chocolate chips; leave those for later).

In a separate bowl, mix the wet ingredients. Once the wet ingredients are combined, stir in the dry ingredients and mix until everything is incorporated.

Fold in the chocolate chips.

Line a muffin tin with papers and spray the papers with non-stick cooking spray (or don’t use the papers and just spray the tins really well). Pour enough batter in so that the cups are filled about 2/3 of the way.

Bake muffins for approximately 18 minutes. Check for doneness by sticking a toothpick in the middle and pulling out; if the toothpick is clean, they’re done baking. If the toothpick comes out dirty, stick the muffins back in the oven for another couple minutes.

Wait a couple minutes for the muffins to cool, then eat and enjoy the heavenly, warm, chocolate-pumpkin combination.

Makes about 2 ½ dozen muffins.

Nutrition facts (according to Calorie Count)

Calories: 105

Fat: 2.8 g

Sodium: 134

Protein: 3

Cheers!

Molly