Where are you fall??

I have been looking for Fall this weekend. I thought he was going to be here soon, given the overcast weather we had last weekend... but noooo. He was just teasing us. It has not started to cool off too much yet and its making me upset. I am ready for scarves, sweaters and boots! I am ready to curl up under a blanket with my sweetie and sip hot cocoa! But I know come mid-January I will be waiting desperately for the sun. I don't want to think about that yet though. I am ready to pack away those shorts and flip-flops and pull out the sweats and slippers. Doug and I were planning on taking a scenic drive up the canyon this weekend to look at the fall leaves, but we decided to postpone our outing to let a few more leaves turn pretty colors.
Good thing too, because this weekend has turned out busier than I thought! We have baked, studied, worked, gone to a football game, got a haircut, grocery shopped, studied more, and I guess we did watch a movie too. And... I forgot to take my camera with me places. So alas there are no pictures of the football game, or the haircut (yet). Sorry!

Pretty much I got tired of waiting for fall and decided to make the first pumpkin muffins of the season! Its almost officially October right?
This recipe is my most favorite pumpkin bread/muffin recipe. It is pretty easy to make and the muffins are oh so good!
Here is the recipe:
1 c. butter
2 c. sugar
4 eggs
1 1/2 c. pumpkin
2 tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. salt
2 tsp cinnamon
3 1/2 c. flour
1 bag of mini chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
First you cream the butter, sugar, eggs and pumpkin together. Don't worry if the butter is a bit lumpy in the batter, its fine. I usually like to use room temperature butter and even then it ends up kind of lumpy.

Next add the baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Mix. Then add the flour. I like to add 1 cup at a time and mix it in before adding the next cup. Its easier than adding all at once and then trying to win the flour versus mixer battle. (Usually the flour wins and ends up all over the counter when that happens, just a heads up). Lastly add the entire bag of chocolate chips.

Pour the batter into a greased loaf pan, if you want to make it into bread, or into greased muffin tins. I tend to not use muffin-tin liners in this recipe. The muffins have always come out of the pan well for me. Using the liners is fine if you want to, I just find that when I go to eat it I have to really work to get every last crumb out of the liner and that's when it gets tricky, especially when trying to have good manners. It makes about 24 good sized muffins. This is also a fun recipe to make with mini-muffin tins. Sometimes I like to make smaller muffins and then it makes about 28. But lots of the time I am too lazy to get out a 3rd muffin tin, because washing two is torture enough as it is. Cleaning muffin tins are the worst! (But so worth it for these beauties!)

Bake for 60-70 minutes for the loaf, and about 19-22 minutes for the muffins. (Usually my muffins near towards the 22-24 minute range when I make 24 muffins because they are so big). I use the toothpick test to make sure they are cooked in the middle. 

The muffins are a pretty good size.

No problems coming out of the pan.

The muffins are seriously SOOOO delicious! Sometimes I like to freeze a dozen and pull them out a week or two after we finish the first 12. The mini muffins are really fun too. One thing I like about this recipe is the use of the mini chocolate chips. It makes it so you have chocolate in every bite, and its not an overwhelming amount. You never have to interrupt the texture of your muffin with a big bite of hard chocolate. If you make these, make sure to tell me how they turn out for you!