These Mini Pumpkin Chocolate Muffins are soft and fluffy with the perfect little muffin top! The pumpkin keeps them luscious and moist and mini chocolate chips ensure each bite is gloriously chocolatey. Love them so!
My taste testers really bailed me out this month.
I made no less than 6 dozen pumpkin-spiked double chocolate muffins in such a short period time that I’m pretty sure my DNA would render me 33% muffin.
To the question of “how many muffins are too many muffins?” I say that there is no such thing! Well, as long as I have friends, neighbors, and gym buddies to share them with!
I made a mix of mini and regular sized muffins and they were quite the hit. Blog-worthy for sure!
Ok no more rambling from me, below you’ll find my muffin baking tips and tricks as well as the easy peasy recipe. Let’s get our muffin on!
Mini Muffin Baking Tips + Tricks
1. Measure with Care
Measuring the flour, cocoa powder, and sugar in grams can save on time and yields the most accurate results. If you aren’t the proud owner of a digital kitchen scale, go ahead and put one on your wish list for your birthday or the holidays and use the fluff/spoon/scrape technique to measure the flour and cocoa powder.
2. Rest the Batter
Resting the batter for 10-15 minutes gives the batter a extra time to rise and helps achieve those puffy little domes on top of your mini muffins.
3. Tweak the Temp
Before you assemble your ingredients, set your oven to 375℉ and allow it to preheat while you make the batter. Once the muffins go in the oven, close the door and adjust the temp to 350℉. This will give the muffins a few minutes of a warmer start time for extra lift. I love using this trick to give my muffins a little extra rise to them and, along with resting the batter, it yields perfect bakery-style mini muffin tops.
4. Use Mini Mix-ins
Mini muffins call for mini mix-ins. With any mini muffin recipe, be sure to use mini chocolate chips instead of regular and, if adding nuts like walnuts or pecans to your muffins, make sure you chop them up extra small. The same goes for fresh fruit and dried fruit. Hunt down mini blueberries for mini blueberry muffins and chop cranberries (dried or fresh) up into small pieces.
Q: What cocoa powder should I use for chocolate muffins?
For these muffins I used unsweetened cocoa powder. My go-to brand is Ghirardelli (the flavor is amazing!) but you could also use Hershey’s or a store brand if you’d like.
For extra-dark chocolate muffins with more intense flavor, you can opt to use dutch-processed cocoa powder. King Arthur Black Cocoa Powder is a favorite of mine.
Q: Can I make these muffins in advance?
These muffins will stay fresh in an airtight container on the counter for a few days! Though it makes 2 dozen, I have not been able to keep them past day 3 before we devour them all. They’re so snackable!
You can also make the muffin batter the night before and let it rest in a covered mixing bowl overnight in the fridge. The next day simply scoop into your mini muffin, bake, and enjoy! Leftover muffins may also be frozen for later.
Mini Pumpkin Chocolate Muffins
Ready to get your muffin on?! Print the recipe card below or feel free to use the COOK MODE toggle feature after the ingredients to keep your screen from going dark. I’m so excited for you to try these marvelous mini muffins!
Mini Pumpkin Chocolate Muffins
Equipment
Ingredients
- ¼ cup unsalted butter (1/2 stick)
- ¾ cup canned pumpkin puree (183 grams)
- ¼ cup light brown sugar (50 grams)
- ¼ cup granulated sugar (50 grams)
- ¼ cup sour cream (61.3 grams)
- 1 large egg
- 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
- ¾ cup plus 2 TBSP unbleached all purpose flour (105 grams)
- ¼ cup unsweetened cocoa powder (21 grams)
- ½ tsp baking soda
- ¼ tsp baking powder
- ¼ tsp fine sea salt
- ½ cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips
Instructions
- First up, preheat oven to 375℉. Line a mini muffin pan with 24 parchment paper liners.
- Measure out all ingredients first for speedier muffin prep.
- Melt ¼ cup butter in a large bowl in the microwave or in a pot on the stove.
- Remove from heat and whisk in pumpkin puree, brown sugar, and granulated sugar. Add sour cream, egg, and vanilla and whisk to incorporate.
- Combine flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, baking powder, and salt in a medium bowl and mix. Add to wet ingredients and mix until combined. Gently fold in mini chocolate chips. Batter will be thick.
- Rest batter for 10-15 minutes then scoop into lined muffin tray for puffy domed muffins. I used a 1.5 TBSP cookie scoop or use a tablespoon to measuring a heaping tablespoon of batter per muffin liner.
- Place muffin pan on the center rack. Once oven door is closed, reduce the oven's temperature from 375℉ to 350℉ (another trick for fluffy muffin tops)
- Bake for 16-18 minutes. (Mine were perfect at 17)
- Once cool enough to handle, transfer to a wire rack to cool (though feel free to steal a warm one first) and enjoy!
Notes
Nutrition
More Marvelous Muffin Recipes
- Blueberry Streusel Muffins
- NEW! Pumpkin Spice Banana Muffins
- Pumpkin Cornbread Muffins (READER FAV)
- Mini Cornbread Muffins
- Mini Apple Muffins via Persnickity Plates
- Banana Nut Muffins with Pecan Streusel
If you get a chance to try this mini pumpkin chocolate muffin recipe, let me know!
You can leave me a comment here (LOVE checking those daily!) or tag @PEASandCRAYONS on Instagram so I can happy dance over your creations. I can’t wait to see what you whip up!
Questions & Reviews
These are so moist and yummy and get pumpkin (hello, fiber!) in the kids without them noticing. It’s a win win!
I can’t wait to try these! I love your chocolate zucchini pumpkin bread muffins (it falls in lots of categories but is extremely tasty 😆) but these look delicious, too! Adding to grocery list now!
Also, I like the cook mode toggle. I usually print my favorites from your page, but this might come in handy for first-try recipes like this one.
Also also, I remember you teaching me how to properly measure flour years ago. I giggled reading through the recipe notes. I probably should have a scale by now to make sure I’m honoring the time you spent trying out different measurements.
So super stoked for you to try them! Oh gosh and the scale is great for accuracy of course but above all else, it saves me time and dishes since I can measure most things right into the bowl by weight and not have to sit there and fluff and spoon and level things.
I started making “box mixes” out of a ton of my recipes too, so at all times I have the dry flour mix ready to go in mason jars for things like cookie cakes, brownies, pancakes, and muffins. So super convenient!
Miss you bunches babe!