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These pumpkin chocolate chip muffins are deliciously moist and cozy-spiced: the perfect baking project for the season!
Here’s a baking project for when you’re ready for fall-spiced everything: try these pumpkin chocolate chip muffins! These tall mounds of dough have a tender crumb and the perfect dose of pumpkin spices, with rich chocolaty morsels in each bite. They’re simple to whip up and the best fall treat for an afternoon snack, dessert, or even to gift to friends and neighbors! Here are all our secrets.
Ingredients in pumpkin chocolate chip muffins
There are infinite ways to make pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, but here’s what you’ll need for our family recipe. A hefty dose of pumpkin puree keeps them moist, and using both sugar and maple syrup gives a nuance to the sweetness. Using cinnamon and pumpkin spices is also key to the cozy-spiced flavor. Here’s what you’ll need:
- Neutral oil
- Granulated sugar
- Pumpkin puree
- Maple syrup
- Eggs
- Vanilla extract
- Apple cider vinegar
- Baking powder and baking soda
- Kosher salt
- Cinnamon
- Pumpkin pie spices (purchased or homemade)
- Flour
- Chocolate chips
Why pumpkin spice + cinnamon?
This pumpkin muffins recipe uses both pie spices and cinnamon. Are they both required? Yes! In the many pumpkin recipes we’ve developed, we’ve noticed it’s essential to have both for that classic “pumpkin” flavor.
Cinnamon brings in the sweet notes, and pumpkin spices bring in the spicy, cozy and more bitter elements. The combination of the two makes the best balanced flavor. We also use this trick in our pumpkin bars and pumpkin spice pancakes.
Keys to tall pumpkin chocolate chip muffins
It’s no fun to bake a batch of stubby muffins, and we love the look of a bakery-style muffin. These pumpkin chocolate chip muffins are tall and hefty, with beautifully-domed tops! Here are a few keys to how to achieve evenly-baked tall muffins:
- Fill every other cup in two 12-cup muffin tins. This makes for the most even bake, as the muffin tops don’t grow into each other when baking. It’s not required, but helpful for perfect muffins.
- Use a recipe that’s optimized for tall muffins, like this one! This recipe is optimized so you have plenty of batter; you’ll fill the muffin cups very full up to the top.
- Baking at 400°F makes a taller muffin. Many muffin recipes baked at 350°F, but a slightly hotter oven makes a taller and fluffier muffin. This recipe also has a hefty amount of leavener (baking powder and baking soda), which makes for a good rise.
Storage info
These pumpkin chocolate chip muffins store well over time, and become even more moist after storage! Here’s what to know:
- Room temperature: Store up to 4 days at room temperature in a sealed container: they become even more moist over time!
- Refrigerator: Store refrigerated for up to 1 week! Let them stand at room temperature for a few minutes before eating.
- Freeze: Freeze in a sealable container and store up to 3 months.
More pumpkin recipes
These pumpkin chocolate chip muffins are a favorite baking project, but there are so many more fun things to make with this seasonal squash! Here are a few more pumpkin recipes to try:
- Go for Best Pumpkin Cookies, Pumpkin Cake or Pumpkin Banana Bread
- Try Pumpkin Spice Pancakes
- Make moist and delicious Perfect Pumpkin Bars or Pumpkin Bread
- Mix up a batch of Best Pumpkin Chili
This pumpkin chocolate chip muffins recipe is…
Vegetarian.
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Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins
- Prep Time: 30 minutes
- Cook Time: 25 minutes
- Total Time: 55 minutes
- Yield: 12 1x
Description
These pumpkin chocolate chip muffins are deliciously moist and cozy-spiced: the perfect baking project for the season!
Ingredients
- ½ cup neutral oil
- 1 ¼ cup granulated sugar
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- 2 tablespoons maple syrup
- 2 large eggs
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
- ½ teaspoon apple cider vinegar or lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¾ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 tablespoons cinnamon
- 2 teaspoons pumpkin spice
- 1 ¾ cups [245 g] all-purpose flour
- 1 cup semi-sweet chocolate chips, plus ¼ cup for topping
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F. Line a standard muffin tin with 12 muffin paper liners (or for the most even bake, place muffin wrappers in every other cup of two 12-cup tins).
- Stir the oil, sugar, pumpkin, maple syrup, eggs, vanilla, and apple cider vinegar. Stir in the baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and pumpkin spices.
- Use a spatula to mix in the flour until a thick smooth batter forms, mixing just until there are no longer streaks of dry ingredients. Fold in 1 cup chocolate chips, mixing gently a few times.
- Scoop the batter evenly into the muffin cups: the cups will be full to the top, using about a heaping ¼ cup per muffin. Sprinkle additional chocolate chips onto the tops of the muffins.
- Bake the muffins for 22 to 26 minutes, until puffed and the tops are golden and a toothpick comes out with a few clinging crumbs.
- Cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then transfer to a rack to cool fully, about 1 hour. Eat immediately or they taste even better the next day after storage in a sealed container at room temperature. Store up to 4 days in a sealed container at room temperature, refrigerated up to 1 week or more (allow to come to room temperature before serving), or frozen up to 3 months.
- Category: Muffin
- Method: Baked
- Cuisine: Muffins
- Diet: Vegetarian
Keywords: Pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, chocolate chip pumpkin muffins
i love this. thank you
Do you ever make sugar free muffins? Or any other desert or meals? The soups look yummy!! No, I haven’t made the muffins and need to know what to use instead of sugar. I love to eat, but not to cook. But I do want to try these muffins. Thank you!
Thanks for asking! None of our muffin recipes have no sugar — since muffins are essentially cupcakes :) However, our healthiest muffin recipe uses banana as a natural sugar and maple syrup (which contains sugar but not refined). The recipe is available here: https://www.acouplecooks.com/healthy-banana-muffins/
One of those days in the kitchen! 😄
I had a partial can of pumpkin leftover, so I decided to make a half batch of these as mini-muffins. As I was making them, I realized I only had half as much pumpkin pie spice left, so I used your chai spice mix recipe for the other half. Then I realized I was short a bit on mini-chocolate-chips, so they have a mix of mini and full size chips. 😄
They are on the oven now (I’m guessing on 14 minutes being the right amount of time).
I’ll report back!
They turned out really good!