If you follow me on Instagram @pastry_tales , you can see that I have already started baking for Christmas time! The day after Halloween, I put down all my spooky decorations while listening to Christmas songs. I think Christmas time goes so fast that I want to enjoy it as much as I can (sorry hubby, you’ll see my Christmas tree up very soon). I know we still have Thanksgiving, so I might post a couple of new recipes that include pumpkin like this one but they won’t be too many because my heart is already with peppermint and snowflakes!

This recipe is very simple to make. Pumpkin Chocolate Swirl Muffins! Pumpkin + Chocolate = Yes, please. Perfect for a cold Thanksgiving morning or a treat to share with everybody at your family gathering.

Let’s start baking.

Yield about 12 regular size muffins . You can double the ingredients for a bigger batch.

Ingredients

1 and 1/2 cups of all -purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

1/4 ground ginger

1 and 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

2 large eggs at room temperature

3/4 cup white granulated sugar

1/2 cup light brown sugar

3/4 cup pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling

1/2 cup canola oil

1/4 cup orange juice

4 oz chocolate melted and cooled. You can use semi-sweet chocolate.

Directions

1.- Adjust the oven rack to the lower third position and preheat oven 375 F degrees. Line your muffins with paper cups.

2.- You don’t need a mixer for this recipe. In a large bowl mix all the dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt baking soda, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon and ginger.

3.- In a medium bowl whisk the eggs with the granulated and brown sugar. Add the pumpkin puree, oil and orange juice. Mix well.

4.- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and gently mix with a spatula. You might see a few lumps, so do not overmix.

5.- Pour the batter evenly into the muffin tin. When I make these kind of muffins, I get the paper cups that you see in my picture. I pour the batter almost all the way to the top so they have a nice dome like bakery style. If you have regular paper cups, just filled 3/4.

6.- Using a teaspoon, drizzle some of the melted chocolate over the top of each muffin cup. Using a toothpick swirl the chocolate. Don’t be afraid of swirling!! Make good swirls so it looks pretty.

7.- Bake muffins for about 20 minutes. Muffins are done baking when you insert a toothpick and it comes clean or with a few moist crumbs.

8.- Let them cool completely .

Enjoy!!