Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins

I’ve been making a lot of Emeril recipes lately. I wish I enjoyed watching his show more, because I really like his food. Oddly, I find that there’s often an inverse relationship between the shows I most enjoy watching and the food I most enjoy making. For instance, I love watching Semi-Homemade—nothing else on the FN comes close for sheer entertainment—but I’ve never wanted to make anything Sandra Lee has heated up—I mean, cooked.

Anyway, today I made Emeril’s Pumpkin Muffins. I omitted the chocolate glaze and instead added semisweet chocolate chips to the batter. I’m sure the glaze would have been good, but I’m lazy. Plus I didn’t have enough chips for that.

Chocolate Chip Pumpkin Muffins
recipe adapted from Emeril’s Pumpkin Muffins with Chocolate Glaze

1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 cups all-purpose flour, plus an extra pinch
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1/2 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup whole milk
1 cup pumpkin puree
4 tablespoons melted unsalted butter
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 375º. Spray a 12-muffin tin with nonstick cooking spray.

In a small bowl, combine chocolate chips with a generous pinch of flour, just enough to give chips a fine, even coating. This will help keep the chocolate from settling to the bottom of the batter as the muffins bake.

In a medium bowl, sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and salt. In a large mixing bowl, beat together sugar, milk, pumpkin, melted butter, and vanilla. Beat in eggs one at a time. Fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just incorporated. Fold in chocolate chips, reserving some to sprinkle on top of muffins. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups, and drop a few chocolate chips in each cup. Bake until golden brown, about 18 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool in the tin for 10 minutes.

These were pretty tasty. I recommend eating them warm with a cold glass of milk. The pumpkin flavor is fairly subtle, so if you want to bring it out more you could use fewer chocolate chips. Or you could omit them entirely and replace them with walnuts or pecans. Emeril used dried cranberries, which would probably be good, too.