I love the fall. Great sports, changing leaves, cool weather (in theory – not here), and delicious food. Mike and I have gone a little crazy over all the limited time pumpkin and spiced apple items at our local stores. But that’s okay, because it’s sweater weather (in theory – not here) and sweaters are great at covering a few extra pounds. When Mike drove up to the Bay Area for the Giants’ game a couple of weeks ago, I sent him with a fresh loaf of chocolate chip pumpkin bread. He ate the ENTIRE THING during the six-hour drive. The stuff is good, you guys. We’re having a Halloween party in a few weeks and I want to serve chocolate chip pumpkin bread, but I thought making them into muffins was more “party.” I obviously had to have a test run to make sure they were still delicious in muffin form. Obviously.

To make the chocolate chip pumpkin batter, you can follow the recipe from my original pumpkin bread post – all the ingredients and measurements are the same.

fill muffin tins 2/3 from top

Put cupcake liners in your muffin tins. Fill each cup about 2/3 full. Bake at 400° for 18-20 minutes (this is different from the pumpkin loaves, which bake at 350° for at least an hour). Do you see how red my face and chest are? That’s because I thought making muffins on a 90 degree day was a good idea. Welcome to October in LA.

chocolate chip pumpkin muffins

Making them into muffins was the greatest idea ever because they are done in a fraction of the time.

chocolate chip pumpkin muffins - now with frosting!

In the spirit of diabetes the season, I frosted some of them with cream cheese frosting. SO GOOD. I think for the party I may use a pastry gun to inject frosting into the middle. I take my muffins and parties seriously.

ready for "cupcakes"

Annie was like, “ZOMG CUPCAKES!”

the bites

Mike took the world’s biggest bite, while Annie chose to merely lick the frosting off the top.

finger licking good

She was too busy licking her fingers to give a proper thumbs up….

the slowest eater in the world

…but she came around to eating the muffin eventually. And then asked for another one!

The recipe makes thirty-six muffins. If you make them for a party Mike is invited to, you need to make thirty-six muffins just for him. What I’m saying is, he likes them.

Enjoy!