Double Chocolate Pumpkin Muffins

I have a habit (I'm not sure if it should be considered good or bad) of buying canned pumpkin unnecessarily. I'll pass it at the store and think "Oh, I should get a can of that for... stuff." So there's nearly always at least one can of it in our pantry.

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.