Mini Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

 Are you with me?  Is there anything better than Pumpkin....AND...Chocolate in the Fall?

I get together with one of my girlfriends/neighbors every other week for a Friday morning coffee date...this week, we are getting together at her house and I wanted to make something homemade...and "Fallish"...so I got inspired...by Pinterest of course.  Now, I have tried several different pumpkin chocolate chip muffin recipes.  All have been fine but none stood out in my mind.  I decided to improvise.  I combined various recipes and chose the things that worked for me and I gotta tell 'ya...I think I hit a home run.  We will see what my gal pal says on Friday AND I am bringing another batch to a friend's house Saturday night.  So far, Robby B is a BIG FAN!  Hope you try and enjoy XOXO Holly

INGREDIENTS:

• 1 3/4 cups FLOUR
• 1/2 cup WHITE SUGAR
• 1/2 cup BROWN SUGAR, packed
• 1 teaspoon GROUND CINNAMON
• 1/2 teaspoon GROUND GINGER
• 1/2 teaspoon GROUND NUTMEG
• Pinch of GROUND CLOVES (optional)
• 1 teaspoon BAKING SODA
• 1/4 teaspoon BAKING POWDER
• 1/2 teaspoon SALT
• 2 EGGS
• 2 teaspoons VANILLA
• 1/2 cup BUTTER, MELTED
• 1 cup CANNED PUMPKIN PUREE
• 1/2 cup MINI SEMI-SWEET CHOCOLATE CHIPS

INSTRUCTIONS:

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease mini muffin pans.
2. In a medium bowl, sift first 10 ingredients - doing this helps make sure there aren't any big chunks of spices.
3. In another bowl, whisk eggs, vanilla and melted butter until well blended; mix in pumpkin puree until combined.
4. Mix in the dry ingredients to the pumpkin mixture until blended. Stir in chocolate chips.
5. Spoon batter into muffin tins, filling about 3/4 full. I use my small cookie scoop for this - it's about 1 Tablespoon of batter.
6. Bake for 9-10 minutes or until muffins test done.