Whole Wheat Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Reading Time: 5 minutes

 

By Beth, Contributing Writer

Who doesn’t love a yummy muffin? Whether it be breakfast or an afternoon snack, muffins are such an easy and delicious go-to food for many of us. But have you ever noticed that for some recipes, the only difference between a muffin and a cake is the pan it’s baked in?  Hmmm, kind of takes the joy out of feeding your kids a muffin to start their day!

Enter the Whole Wheat Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin. It’s healthy, it has pumpkin and chocolate chips, and it’s a muffin. And my super-picky eater loves them! I call this a win! The recipe is easy to double and freezes well, which is good, considering how fast they disappear in my house.

I have to be honest and say that these in particular do come out better if you use freshly ground whole wheat instead of store-bought. I made some last week with some flour that my friend gave me (she’s having to go gluten free) and the muffins just weren’t as good. They were a bit dense and dry.

Does the sound of grinding your own wheat sound like a crazy idea? Something like hanging your laundry out to dry or making your own vanilla? (Not that I would scoff at you if you do either, but they do take a while.)

Please let me assure you that if you can pour grains of wheat into the top of a grinder and turn it on, you can grind your own wheat. Here’s the grinder I use. I grind a lot at a time and freeze the flour. Then I just thaw and use what I need. It’s super easy and I am amazed at the difference in the texture of our whole-wheat foods. Haven’t convinced you? OK, then I give you permission to use some regular white flour in this recipe. I’d go with a cup of whole wheat and 2/3 cup of white.

OK, now that we have that settled, let’s get this party started! You know the drill. In a large bowl, combine all of your dry ingredients.

Then in a small bowl, combine your “wet” ingredients. This includes your pumpkin and butter. I combined the pumpkin with the butter before adding the eggs because the butter was hot. We don’t want scrambled eggs in our muffins, now do we?

Stir all of that together until it’s pretty well combined.

And if you don’t want your children to disown you, then by all means, don’t forget the chocolate chips!

Then just stir it all until it’s combined. You’ll have a fairly thick batter but it shouldn’t be difficult to stir at all.

Next, either lightly spray a muffin pan, or line it with muffin papers. I found these last year at Big Lots for 79¢ so I thought this would be a good time to use them.

Using a medium scoop, fill each muffin paper 2/3 full.

Speaking of these being easy, that’s my 6 year old filling that cup. That’s me taking the picture. I spared you the picture of him eating the batter.

Pop them into your preheated oven and prepare for a beautifully healthy yet delicious muffin.

Make it a cozy breakfast, an afternoon snack, or invite a friend over for coffee or tea. Either way, you’re gonna love ’em.

If you’re crazy for pumpkin, and haven’t gotten your fill by this time in the year, you might want to check out the pumpkin recipes here on The Humbled Homemaker.

These are some of my other pumpkin recipes:

Pumpkin Whoopie Pies  – These are delicious and freeze well, so you can make them ahead for Christmas!

Pumpkin Donuts – I talk about my grandmother a lot on my blog. She taught me a lot of what I know about cooking and instilled in me the love of making memorable food. These donuts take me back to my childhood every time I make them. They are perfect, and maybe just a tiny bit healthy since there’s pumpkin in them? She used to use squash but something about “Squash donuts” just didn’t have a delicious ring to it, so I changed it to pumpkin. Sorry Gram, you don’t mined do you?

Oh, and another family favorite is Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cookies. (Are you sensing a theme here?) I haven’t published those in a post yet, but you can find them in my book Desserts that are Worth It. I’d love to offer it to you (a Humbled Homemaker reader) at a discount, so, from now until December 20, you can get it for just $2.00. Just click this link: Desserts That Are Worth It and use the code humbledgift (not case sensitive, all one word).

I hope you love them as much as we do!

Do you like pumpkin muffins? What is your favorite kind of muffin?