These Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins are a cinch to prepare. Full of pumpkin, spice, and chocolate, they are perfect for fall breakfasts and snacks.
Since you can freeze muffins, consider stocking away a few unbaked Pumpkin Muffins now and the next time you make other muffins, such as Apple Cinnamon Muffins or Vegan Muffins with Pear. As your stash builds, you’ll be able to bake a variety of flavors fresh one morning without any extra work!
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As fall settles in, so do my desires for baked goods, stocking the cupboards, and pumpkin-flavored goodies. Oh and sweaters. Unfortunately, I have to wait until November to be able to wear a sweater around here, but the pumpkin goodies? I got those covered.
These Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins are a favorite of mine. Rich, spicy, pumpkin cake is dotted with mini chocolate chips. Pumpkin Muffins are the perfect breakfast or afternoon snack during fall.
Why Make This
It’s super easy with a homemade muffin mix. Using a homemade muffin mix allows me to have my convenience along with high quality ingredients. You’ll notice that this recipe is just that: ingredients. No weird preservatives, nothing you can’t pronounce.
You can bake or freeze or both. Bake some, freeze the rest. This pumpkin muffin recipe makes 18 muffins, so you can have your muffin and freeze it, too.
Ingredients
Here’s what you need to make Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins:
buttermilk – Buttermilk is excellent for baking. Remember you can freeze buttermilk or even culture buttermilk yourself. However, in a pinch, you can combine equal parts of milk and yogurt to make a close substitute.
pumpkin puree – Be sure to get canned puree, not pumpkin pie filling. You can also make your own pumpkin or butternut squash puree to use instead.
oil – Use whatever oil you normally use for baking. (I use avocado oil.) You can also use melted butter or margarine.
eggs – You can use standard large eggs or, for a vegan or egg-free option, use Flaxseed Meal Egg Substitute.
Homemade Muffin Mix – This mix is the base for all my muffin recipes. It’s so handy to keep a few batches in the pantry. You can make a multitude of different muffins in minutes with a homemade mix.
spices – Is it a pumpkin baked good without a good dose of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg? You can omit these if you like, all or just one, or you can use a commercial pie spice blend.
mini chocolate chips – For maximum chocolate throughout the muffin, I like to use mini chips. You can use regular chips or chunks if you prefer. Butterscotch chips would be tasty as well.
Step-by-Step Instructions
Here’s how to make Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins:
Prep step: Preheat the oven to 375°. Line muffin pans with muffin papers.
1. In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the muffin mix, chocolate chips, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves.
2. In another mixing bowl combine the buttermilk, pumpkin, oil, and eggs. Whisk until well blended.
3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and fold gently to combine.
4. Divide the Pumpkin Muffin batter among the muffin cups. It’s okay if the cups overflow. Sprinkle additional chocolate chips over the top of the muffin batter. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Cool the baked muffins on a wire rack.
Freezing Instructions
To freeze Pumpkin muffins unbaked: Assemble the recipe as directed. Instead of baking, slide the pan into the freezer for several hours until the muffins are frozen solid. Remove the frozen muffin “pucks” from the pan and store them in an airtight container in the freezer. To bake, replace the frozen muffins into a muffin tin and bake, adding five minutes to the baking time if needed.
To freeze baked muffins: Bake the muffins according to the recipe and cool completely on the rack. Place in an airtight container or ziptop bag and store in the freezer, for up to 2 months.
FAQs
There are two pumpkin products that are typically canned: pumpkin puree and pumpkin pie filling. Pumpkin puree is just that, pumpkin. Pumpkin pie filling contains sugar and spices and other ingredients added in. For most baking recipes, you’ll want to get pumpkin puree, sometimes labeled “pumpkin” or “pure pumpkin”.
Pumpkin muffins are wonderful for freezing. You can freeze them baked or unbaked. If baked, cool completely before wrapping and freezing. If unbaked, freeze in lined tins, pop out the muffin pucks and store in the freezer until ready to bake. See How to Freeze Muffins for more details.
Baked muffins are good for 3-5 days in an airtight container. Freeze for longer storage.
Recipe Costs
Knowing how much it costs you to prepare a recipe can help you decide if it’s the type of recipe to make regularly or one you might want to save for special occasions. Let’s crunch some numbers and see how this recipe pencils out.
- buttermilk – $1.20
- pumpkin puree – $0.50
- oil – $0.16
- eggs – $0.30
- Mix and Match Muffin Mix – $0.92
- spices – $0.10
- mini chocolate chips – $0.25
While your costs may vary depending on where and how you shop, you can expect to pay $3.43 for 18 pumpkin muffins, about 19 cents each!
Save Even More:
Here are some of the strategies I use to make this recipe more economical:
- Do a price comparison. I know that Costco is the best place to buy ingredients like eggs and spices when there isn’t a great sale elsewhere. I keep track of prices so that I know who has the best deal where.
- Stock up on ingredients when they are on sale. For instance, as the holiday season approaches, the prices on baking ingredients drop dramatically. I stock up wherever possible on canned pumpkin, baking chocolate, flour, spices, and leavenings.
- Use more affordable alternatives. If buttermilk is not something you’ll use up or if it’s just not in the budget, make your own “soured milk”. Place one tablespoon white vinegar or lemon juice in a 1-cup measure, fill up the cup with milk, let it sit for five minutes. The resulting mixture is an affordable alternative to buttermilk. You can also mix together equal parts of milk and yogurt to create a buttermilk-like mixture.
- Use mini chocolate chips; they stretch farther than larger chips. ½ cup of mini chips goes much farther than the same amount of regular chips.
- If there’s a pumpkin shortage where you live or you have an abundance of butternut squash, make butternut squash puree instead. It works great in these, though they won’t technically be pumpkin muffins!
More Great Baked Goods to Try
Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins
Equipment
Ingredients
- 1 batch Mix and Match Muffin Mix
- ½ cup mini chocolate chips plus extra for sprinkling
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- ½ teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 ½ cup buttermilk
- 1 cup pumpkin puree
- ½ cup neutral oil
- 2 egg
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°. Line muffin pans with muffin papers.
- In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the muffin mix, chocolate chips, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and cloves.
- In another mixing bowl combine the buttermilk, pumpkin, oil, and eggs. Whisk until well blended.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry and fold to combine.
- Divide the batter among the muffin cups. It's okay if the cups overflow. Sprinkle additional chocolate chips over the top of the muffin batter. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. Cool the baked muffins on a wire rack.
Notes
Nutrition
This post was originally published on August 1, 2011. It has been updated for content and clarity.
Adrienne
I subbed nonfat greek yogurt for the buttermilk and I used 1:1 gluten free flour to sub for all purpose and WW flours. I did need to add about 1/2-2/3 cup of milk since the GF flour soaks up so much moisture.
christina
Can I use milk instead of buttermilk?
Jessica
That should work. Just reduce the amount of milk just a tad.
Vivienne
A question: the recipe doesn’t state which size of can – we get two sizes in my area, but I’m thinking probably the smaller size. (The big can I have is 28 fl oz).
Secondly, your “Yield” states 12, but the recipe says 24.
Looking forward to eating some in about 45 mins 😉
Jessica
Yes on the smaller can. As for the yield, I think it specifies servings. And I would consider 2 muffins a serving since they are fairly small. Sorry for the confusion.
Emily @ Random Recycling
so happy to pin this today on my Muffin board!
Jblank
I use butternut squash when I don’t have pumpkin. I also add a cup of pumpkin to my chili. It gives a little sweet and a little more fiber!
Melissa Graham
Still no pumpkin to be found in NC. I was wondering if sweet potato would do the same. I really hate to try to cook my own pumpkin. LOL.
Jessica
I am guessing that it would.
Natasha
I have some pumpkin stored from last year, but how much is one bag of dry mix? 1 cup?
Jessica
The recipe is here: https://goodcheapeats.com/2009/11/mix-and-match-muffins/
AllieZirkle
So I went ahead and made these today. I think it’s 110* outside. I cannot believe I’m running my oven… Alas, batch baking was needed! I also baked up a triple batch of pancakes and a triple batch of waffles.
I did increase the recipe by 1.5 to use the entire 15 oz can of pumpkin. This worked well! 36 muffins are in my oven. Oh! And I only had regular chocolate chips, not the mini, and they seem to work just fine. YUM!
🙂 Allie
Jessica
@AllieZirkle, great! Thanks for the feedback!
Janine
So funny! In Australia you can’t get ‘canned’ pumpkin in any supermarket. It’s just not available. When I think pumpkin I only think fresh! I wanted to make a pumkin pie last year and had to get canned pumkin from the US Food Store online 🙂
Jen Blacker
That’s funny, I was looking for pumpkin a few months ago and the shelves were empty. Next shopping trip I’ll have to keep my eyes out.
[email protected] The Dollar Hollering Homemaker
Um I bought 48 cans of pumpkin last year…like you mine expire in 2013….
So pumpkin is a staple around here, so yummy. My friend joy just gave me her pumpkin oatmeal choco chip recipe and it’s yummy!
Debbie
Too funny! I had the almost exact same post a couple of years ago!
http://unafamiliaalaskena.blogspot.com/2009/12/i-love-after-christmas-sales.html
We LOVE pumpkin chocolate chip muffins here!
sarah k. @ the pajama chef
haha funny, my husband was just asking me what i was going to do with all the pumpkin i stockpiled from last fall in case there was a shortage this year! 🙂
femmefrugality
OH MY GOSH these are so good! Pumpkin’s not a staple at my house…but that may change. Thank you for reminding me about the pumpkin/chocolate chip combo!
Becky
Instead of canned pumpkin (which I never seem to be able to find as low as you mentioned), I buy lots of sweet potatoes when they are super cheap in Nov/Dec ($.25/lb around here), cook and puree them, then freeze in 2-cup portions for use the rest of the year. I use it interchangably with pumpkin in recipes like this one.
Sharon
We love pumpkin choc chip muffins at our house too! You may have inspired me to get baking… even though it will be 95+ degrees today (that’s better than the 100+ it was a week ago!) 😉
Jen
I always cook up my halloween jack-o-lantern and freeze 1 cup servings in freezer bags. That way I always have stuff for pumpkin bread or pumpkin cookies.
Becki's Whole Life
Yum…I love pumpkin and I may possibly have one can still in my pantry. I am starting to be completely ready for fall so this recipe sounds great right now!
Charlene
These sound good. I was wondering about the bag of Mix and Match Muffin Mix. What’s the recipe for that? I found your recipe for the Mix and Match Muffins, but I’m not sure what part of that to use for this recipe, or how much of it to use?? Thanks!
Jessica
@Charlene, great question. I apologize. I forgot to link to the Muffin recipe. It will just be the dry part of the Muffin Mix. I’ve edited that recipe for clarity. https://goodcheapeats.com/2009/11/mix-and-match-muffins/ Thanks!
Charlene
@Jessica, Cool, now I know exactly what to do! Thanks so much!