Pumpkin Muffins

I love breakfast! It's my favorite meal of the day. I love to make it and I love breakfast foods. Unfortunately, most breakfast foods don't fit into our diet (that's a story for another post). Take muffins for instance. They are usually full of sugar and white flour, two things we try to avoid in our regular meals. 

A few years ago I went looking for a pumpkin muffin recipe. I found a few recipes that used gobs of sugar and white flour. They looked absolutely delicious....as dessert muffins. I chose a recipe that I could work with and started substituting. At first I substituted half of the flour with whole wheat and used 1/3 of the sugar. My kids loved them! The next time I substituted half of the oil with apple sauce, used all whole wheat flour, and honey instead of white sugar. Again, my kids didn't even notice the difference! I tried substituting all the oil with applesauce but didn't love the outcome. Also, we noticed when there was no sweetener so we always add at least 1/2 c. of honey. A few more substitutions later we found the right recipe for us. 

We usually have muffins once a week for breakfast. I serve them with fruit, a green smoothie, or scrambled eggs. We rotate through about 4-6 different muffin recipes but these are by far our favorite. It's probably the chocolate chips :). We usually make these at least once a month...sometimes more. In fact, I've added pumpkin (and nutmeg) to our food storage, just so we never run out of pumpkin when the craving hits. You know, canned pumpkin is hard to find in July!

We've also given these muffins to neighbors and friends (who might not be used to whole wheat muffins) etc. and they've loved them as well. 

You should try them sometime. Here is the recipe.

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

4 eggs
2 c. canned pumpkin
2/3 c. water
1/2 c. oil
1/2 c. honey

1 c. applesauce

1 1/3 c. whole wheat flour
2 t. baking soda
1 t. salt
1 t. cinnamon
1 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. ginger
1 c. semi-sweet chocolate chips
(If I don't add chocolate chips, then I increase the honey to 1 cup.)

In large bowl, mix wet ingredients together with whisk. Then add flour on top of wet ingredients, covering the entire top of the pumpkin mixture. Then add the rest of the dry ingredients including the chocolate chips on top of the flour. (This is how I avoid using a separate bowl for dry ingredients. I'm "smart" or lazy that way. Use a spoon to stir the dry ingredients into the wet until well mixed. The dough should be very moist. Grease muffin tins and fill full with dough. Bake at 350 degrees for 20 minutes. Makes 24 muffins.

Christene