Sweet Suppertime

heavy on the butter and sugar...

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

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Sunday breakfasts are a favorite for me and my family. Depending on our church schedule, I usually end up with extra time to bake something extra delicious. This past Sunday morning called for Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins.

As I gathered my ingredients to make these delicious fall muffins, I realized I was about one cup short of chocolate chips. Seeing as how I had refilled my chocolate chip canister earlier this week, I imagine that more than one pair of little hands found their way into the jar. Luckily, we had about a dozen fun-sized Hershey bars leftover from recent activity. So my girls and I chopped those up to mix in and saved the 1/4 cup of chocolate chips for sprinkling on top. Adaptability is the name of the game around here! The chopped-up chocolate chunks were delicious in this recipe and many other substitutions would work just as well. I’m thinking about trying white chocolate or cinnamon chips but you could easily omit the chips completely and have pure pumpkin muffins.

Here’s hoping you have extra time this week for extra delicious Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Serving Size:
16 Muffins
Time:
35
Difficulty:
East

Ingredients

  • 2 C flour
  • 1 t. baking soda
  • 2 t. pumpkin pie spice
  • 1/2 t. salt
  • 1/4 c. milk
  • 1/2 c. vegetable oil
  • 1/2 c. sugar
  • 1/2 c. light brown sugar
  • 1 1/2 c. canned pumpkin puree
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 c. chocolate chips (reserve a few for topping the muffins)

Directions

  1. Preheat oven to 425 and line a 12 count muffin tin and a 6 count muffin tin with paper or silicone tin liners.
  2. Mix flour, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, and salt together in a bowl and set aside.
  3. In another bowl mix milk, oil, sugars, pumpkin puree, and eggs until well blended.
  4. Add wet ingredients to the dry and mix gently, only until just combined.
  5. Add chocolate chips and gently stir until incorporated.
  6. Fill tins almost all the way full* and bake for 5 minutes, reduce the heat to 350 and continue baking another 15-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.

*because this is such a heavy batter as long as you leave about 1/4″ space from the top of the liner the muffins will puff up, not over the edges

The Mystery of the Missing Donuts: Baked Pumpkin Spice Donuts

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When September rolls around here in Utah sometimes it doesn’t feel like the ushering in of Autumn. We’ve been known to have temperatures well into the 90’s, or early freezes and snow flurries depending on the year. Sometimes all you have is the word, September to remind you that the seasons are changing. But a pumpkin spiced donut helps too.

We first whipped up a batch of these on September 1st, just to make sure we kicked off fall right. They were worth waking up extra early on a Tuesday morning to make sure my first grader had cinnamon sugar in the corners of her mouth as she skipped off to school. I guess mandatory masks have their plus sides.

We only waited a few days for another batch, a breezy Saturday morning where you could almost smell the leaves changing colors. We savored the first batch, eating all six before they cooled, and I left the remaining on the kitchen counter. We had a few to take to grandmas and a few for later. I knew the donuts wouldn’t make it through the day but I was surprised after loading the girls up the car to find the plate completely empty. No donuts for later, and none to share at grandmas house.

I began a frantic search for the eight missing donuts, after interrogating each child and deciding the two-year-old was the likeliest culprit. We searched in cabinets, toy baskets, garbage bins, anywhere we thought those stubby two-year-old arms could easily reach. After a half-hour of searching not a single donut turned up. We couldn’t even find cinnamon sugar evidence anywhere. With no real evidence, we came to the conclusion that she fed them one by one to Rico, our Great Pyrenees. In fact, the lack of evidence is what led us to that conclusion, it was all licked up, every last crumb.

Trying to find the humor while living my own “who stole the cookies from the cookie jar” moment would’ve been easier if these pumpkin spice donuts weren’t so perfectly delicious. Thankfully, enough time has passed now, and enough batches of donuts have been eaten in the meantime, that we can laugh about it now. And whenever I have a half dozen of these lovelies baking in the oven without fail Rico appears at the door, looking extra drooly and expectant. I can’t blame him.

**You will need a donut pan! Don’t have one? I’d suggest you invest! I bought mine at King Arthur Flour. Don’t want to buy one? I saw a great tutorial on how to make your own here

Baked Pumpkin Spice Donuts

Serving Size:
16-18
Time:
1hr
Difficulty:
Beginner

Ingredients

  • 15 oz. can of pumpkin puree
  • 3/4 c. brown sugar
  • 1/3 c. vegetable oil
  • 1/3 c. buttermilk
  • 4 T. melted butter
  • 3 eggs
  • 3 1/4 c. flour
  • 1/2 t. salt
  • 2 1/2 t. baking powder
  • 1/4 t. baking soda
  • 2 t. pumpkin pie spice
  • CINNAMON SUGAR COATING
  • 3/4 c melted butter
  • 3 t. cinnamon
  • 3/4 c sugar

Directions

  1. Mix the pumpkin, brown sugar, oil, buttermilk, eggs, and melted butter.
  2. In a separate bowl mix the flour, salt, baking powder, baking soda, and pumpkin pie spice
  3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, mix only until combined. Over mixing will make the donuts tough and dense.
  4. Spoon the batter into a large piping bag, or a ziplock bag with a corner snipped off.
  5. Pipe the batter into a greased donut pan, filling them about 3/4 full
  6. Bake at 350 F for 18-25 minutes (depending on your oven) or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
  7. Remove onto a cooling rack
  8. For the cinnamon sugar coating, mix cinnamon and sugar together,
  9. Dip both sides of the donut in melted butter and then in the cinnamon sugar mixture.