Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

I am a creature of habit, especially when it comes to meals. I have the same thing for breakfast and lunch every day and my dinner choices are the same dozen or so meals. I try and have a little variety in breakfast though, eating something different on the weekends than I do during the week. On Saturdays I have an Eggo breakfast sandwich since I do my grocery shopping shortly after. Sundays are a little different: when I was going to church I didn't have anything since my carpool stayed after mass for coffee hour, complete with pastries. After I decided to take a break from church, I needed a Sunday breakfast. For a while I was eating Pop-Tarts and scones. But I finally finished them so I turned to my Breakfast Foods board on Pinterest. Since it's still fall and I was in the mood for muffins, I decided on Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins from The Girl Who Ate Everything.

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins (source)

Ingredients

• 4 eggs (the store I was at didn't have the half-dozen egg cartons so I just bought egg substitute. Seemed to do the trick.)
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 can (15 ounces) solid-pack pumpkin puree (just don't get the can that says pumpkin pie filling.)
• 1-1/2 cups canola oil
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups (12 ounces) semisweet chocolate chips (or any other flavor chocolate chips. I prefer milk chocolate.)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 400°. Place paper liners in a regular sized muffin pan. (because I was going to be freezing these and heating them up in the toaster over, I just sprayed the muffin cups with Pam.)
2. In a large bowl, beat the eggs, sugar, pumpkin and oil until smooth. Combine the flour, baking soda, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice and salt; Add flour mixture slowly to pumpkin mixture and mix well. Fold in chocolate chips. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths to almost all the way full.
3. Bake for 15-17 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Do not overbake. It makes all the difference between a good and a great muffin. Cool in pan 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack. Makes 2 dozen muffins.

Fresh out of the oven, they were delicious. Very moist and pumpkiny. Straight out of the freezer was a different story: they still tasted great but the center was barely thawed out after about 4 minutes in the toaster oven. So for the third time, I left the muffins out overnight to thaw first before being heated in the toaster oven. Success! (although the center was still a tiny bit cold - maybe 5 minutes tomorrow? Hopefully they won't burn.)