And that's a very good thing, in my opinion, when it come to making muffins. Pumpkin makes muffins AMAZING. You can make a very rich, moist (sorry) muffin using pumpkin without adding much fat, and it adds lots of fiber and vitamin A. You can make something very dessert-like that isn't entirely terrible for you.
This particular recipe tastes like straight-up cake. And it is cake-like, but it's still fairly healthy. There's not a ton of sugar, and you could leave out the chocolate chips to make it even healthier, or add some nuts or dried fruit instead.
Double Chocolate Pumpkin Muffins
1 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/3 cup cocoa powder (I used Hershey's Special Dark, but regular cocoa powder works just fine)
1/3 cup butter, melted
1 15oz can of pumpkin (not canned pumpkin pie filling)
1 egg
2 tsp vanilla extract
1 cup chocolate chips, dried fruit, or nuts (optional)
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and prepare a muffin pan (this recipe makes 12 standard-sized muffins) with non-stick spray or butter, or with paper muffin cups.
Whisk together the dry ingredients. Melt the butter in a separate bowl, add the pumpkin, egg, and vanilla extract and mix well.
Add the wet ingredients and the chocolate chips to the dry ingredients and mix with a rubber spatula/scraper until just combined - don't overmix. Divide between the muffin cups (a cookie scoop helps with this, or you can just use a spoon).
Bake for 15-20 minutes or until a wooden pick comes out clean.
