It’s no secret I love muffins. I’ve shared my recipes for blueberry coconut muffins, oatmeal strawberry muffins, berry muffins sweetened with agave, Halloween orange muffins, banana coconut muffins, chocolate chip mini muffins, apple cinnamon muffins, raspberry oatmeal chocolate chip muffins, peachy flax molasses muffins and lemon poppy seed muffins.

Hmmmm … I wonder how all those chocolate chips got into the recipes? I guess it’s also no secret that I love chocolate….

Many of my muffin recipes are borne from us being completely sick of Keith’s pancakes … delicious, but tiresome every weekend. So as Owen and I were brainstorming ideas for muffins this morning, this is what “won.” The result is a fluffy, moist, flavorful muffin that you could easily make with cranberries instead of chocolate chips if you swing that way. I was thinking they’d taste great with both, but I was vetoed.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ingredients:

• 1-3/4 cups spelt flour (or flour of your choice)
• 1/3 cup palm sugar (or sugar of your choice)
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 egg, beaten
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 3/4 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/3 cup oil (I used rice bran oil) or melted butter
• 3/4 cup chocolate chips (I used grain-sweetened)

Blend all dry ingredients in a large bowl, and mix all wet ingredients in a medium bowl. Add wet to dry and stir until just blended, then fold in chocolate chips.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 18 minutes. Serve warm, because you can, and why would you miss the opportunity for gooey chocolate chips?

Alternate version: Either substitute frozen or fresh cranberries for the chocolate chips and sprinkle Turbinado sugar on top of the muffin before baking, or use half chocolate chips / half cranberries.