These pumpkin chocolate chip muffins are super moist, perfectly spiced, and loaded with gooey chocolate. They’re an easy, delicious fall treat!

These pumpkin chocolate chip muffins are the perfect fall treat. They’re incredibly moist, warmly spiced, and studded with melty, gooey chocolate chips. To give you an idea of how much I love them, I’ve already made them 3 times this fall, and I’m about to head to the kitchen to make another batch. On a crisp October day, they’re simply the best breakfast or snack.

Like all my muffin recipes, these pumpkin chocolate chip muffins are easy to make. But they have something else going for them too: they use an entire can of pumpkin. I actually tested them with less pumpkin originally, but the full-can version totally won out. You don’t have any leftover puree to use up, and the muffins themselves are moister and more flavorful. I think you’re going to love them!

Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins Ingredients

Here’s what you’ll need to make this pumpkin chocolate chip muffin recipe:

• Pumpkin, of course! Canned pumpkin puree, to be precise. Make sure to use plain puree and not pumpkin pie filling, which contains extra spices and sugar. No surprises here, but my go-to pumpkin brand is Libby’s.
• All-purpose flour – Spoon and level it to avoid packing too much into your measuring cup.
• Baking powder, baking soda, and eggs – They help the muffins puff up as they bake.
• Brown sugar and cane sugar – They sweeten the muffins and perfect their moist, tender texture.
• Milk – For moisture. Feel free to use your favorite type. Regular milk, almond milk, and oat milk would all work well here.
• Vegetable oil – For richness. Another neutral oil or melted butter would work well too.
• Pumpkin pie spice and vanilla extract – For warm, spiced depth of flavor. If you don’t keep pumpkin pie spice on hand, you can substitute a mix of warm spices like cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, and cloves.
• Chocolate chips – Whatever kind you like! I always use dark chocolate chips (the Enjoy Life brand is my favorite), but semi-sweet or milk chocolate chips would also be great.
• And sea salt – To make all the flavors pop!

Find the complete recipe with measurements below.

How to Make Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins

You can find the complete recipe with measurements below, but for now, here’s a quick overview of how it goes:

Start by making the batter. Whisk together the wet ingredients in one bowl and the dry ingredients in another. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and mix until just combined. The batter will be thick! Fold in the chocolate chips.

Evenly divide the batter into a 12-cup muffin tin. You can grease the muffin pan with a little oil first or line it with paper liners. I prefer to make these with liners—baked straight in the pan, they can get a little dark on the sides.

Top with more chocolate chips, and bake! The muffins take 15 to 20 minutes at 400°F. They’re ready when the tops spring back to the touch and a toothpick inserted comes out with just a few crumbs attached.

Let cool in the pan for 10 minutes before you transfer the muffins to a wire rack to continue cooling…or devour them warm. Enjoy!

More Favorite Pumpkin Recipes

If you love these chocolate chip pumpkin muffins, try one of these easy pumpkin recipes next:

Welcome to some scenes from our cozy fall kitchen! My daughter Courtney and I recently styled our kitchen for a brand video we made for a partnership on Instagram, so we thought it would be fun to take some photos to share with you here!

It’s always a special day when we get to bake (and eat!) a cake together and make coffee, too.

What a cozy way to officially welcome fall to our kitchen!

In this post I will share:

• a few photos from our fall baking day (scroll to see the photos below)!
• the recipe for the tasty cake we made (scroll down to find the recipe link)
• links to my Amazon storefront, favorite deals and home decor from the Amazon Prime Day sale (happening now!)
• sources for the dishes, gift ideas and accessories from the brand partnership featured in these photos are all here in my LTK (you don’t need the app, but you can get it so you’ll be notified when I post new sources there).

How to shop my favorites on the Amazon Prime sale:

Start at The Inspired Room Amazon Storefront (amazon.com/shop/theinspiredroomshop) so you can find all of my Amazon home favorites as well as the deals I find throughout the sale. You’ll find all of my curated Amazon folders organized by subject, so you can scroll through those to shop Amazon for my favorites at your leisure.

I also have a dedicated “Prime Big Deal Days folder” — I will keep that folder updated as I find more good deals. You will want to save that link so you can return to it throughout the sale.

Hope you enjoy the apple cider cake recipe and my cozy fall kitchen photos!

If you’d like to save any of my images or ideas for inspiration, please pin them directly from this post and credit The Inspired Room— this helps others find their way here, too! I appreciate it so much.

Apple Cider Donut Bundt Cake Recipe

This is the recipe we used for the apple cider donut bundt cake. Such a fun treat!

You can substitute regular flour for this one if you want to make it gluten free!

My coastal cottage style Amazon folder favorites can be found here!

Pretty blue and white accessories at Amazon can be found here!

* Click here for above sources *

You can shop my favorite coffee supplies in my Amazon folder here…… and find ALL of my Amazon favorites here.

* Click here for above sources *

Brown Sugar Maple Pumpkin Butter Cookies. Soft, chewy pumpkin cookies made with brown butter, maple, spiced pumpkin butter and chocolate chips. Each cookie is finished with a creamy maple glaze that melts into every warm, chocolatey bite. Perfect for baking all season long!

We’re a few days into October, and pumpkin cookies are on the baking list. Yep, it’s finally time!

I’m kicking off pumpkin-baking season with what might be my best pumpkin cookie yet. I’ve baked these four times this week already. My excuse? I was “testing the recipe,” but really…we devoured every batch and just wanted more!

Here’s the thing — most pumpkin cookie recipes lean cakey and thick, almost like muffins. That’s fine, but I’ve always dreamed of a pumpkin cookie with true chewy chocolate chip cookie vibes — rich, thin-ish, and perfectly soft in the center.

It took a few days of tinkering and four batches of homemade pumpkin butter, but I finally landed on the pumpkin cookie I’ve been craving. Big pumpkin flavor, warm fall spices, melty chocolate, and that maple glaze dripping over the top. You’re going to love these.

Let’s go through the steps

Ingredients

For the Cookies

• salted butter
• brown sugar
• pumpkin butter
• an egg
• vanilla extract
• flour
• baking soda
• cinnamon
• dark or semi-sweet chocolate chips
• toasted or candied pecans
• maple syrup

For the Maple Glaze

• salted butter
• maple syrup
• powdered sugar
• sea salt

The Tools 

Just a mixing bowl, a saucepan, and cookie sheets. You can use a stand mixer or an electric hand mixer. I use a hand mixer most often.

Steps

Step 1: Brown the butter

First things first, brown the butter. Add the butter to a skillet and melt over medium heat. Let it bubble and foam, then cook until it turns a light golden brown and smells nutty, about 3–4 minutes. This gives the cookies incredible flavor.

Step 2: Make the cookie batter

Beat the browned butter with the brown sugar, pumpkin butter, egg, and vanilla until smooth and glossy. Add the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, and sea salt. Mix just until combined — don’t overmix.

Step 3: Add the chocolate

Stir in the chocolate chips (I love dark, but semi-sweet works too). If you like, toss in some toasted pecans for extra crunch and nuttiness.

Step 4: Roll the cookies

Scoop the dough into tablespoon-size balls. Drizzle or roll each ball lightly in maple syrup — it’s an unusual step, but it gives these cookies extra flavor and a pretty, subtle sparkle once baked.

Step 5: Bake

Arrange the cookies on a parchment-lined baking sheet and bake. About halfway through, pull the pan out and gently tap it on the counter to help the cookies spread evenly. Return to the oven to finish baking until the edges are set but the centers are still a bit soft.

Step 6: Make the glaze (optional)

Whisk browned butter with maple syrup, powdered sugar, and a pinch of sea salt until smooth and creamy. Drizzle the glaze generously over the warm cookies — it melts into every crackle for the most delicious finish.

These cookies are…

• Easy — no chilling and done in under an hour

• Packed with real pumpkin flavor

• Rolled in maple syrup for extra flavor + sparkle

• Loaded with chocolate chips (and optional pecans)

• Chewy, soft, and perfectly gooey in the center

• Finished with a sweet maple glaze that melts into every crackle

Bake a batch this weekend, pour yourself a cup of coffee (or cider!), and enjoy every chewy, pumpkin-spiced bite. It’s the sweetest way to celebrate fall!

Looking for fall cookie recipes? Here are a few ideas: 

Glazed Brown Sugar Maple Cookies

Pumpkin Butter Chocolate Chip Cookies

Milk Chocolate Stuffed Jack-O’-Lantern Cookies

Chewy Brown Sugar Maple Cookies

Lastly, if you make these Brown Sugar Maple Pumpkin Butter Cookies, be sure to leave a comment and/or give this recipe a rating! Above all, I love hearing from you and always do my best to respond to each and every comment. And of course, if you do make this recipe, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram! Looking through the photos of recipes you all have made is my favorite!

Easy Apple Cider Honey Muffins — the coziest way to welcome the weekend and the fall season! These soft, warmly spiced muffins are made with boiled-down spiced apple cider (for extra apple flavor), raw honey, apple butter, brown sugar, and a mix of cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg. They’re baked until perfectly fluffy, then dipped in sweet cinnamon sugar for that irresistible finish.

I promised no pumpkin until October — and I’m sticking to it! There are still so many apple recipes I’m excited to share first. The weather this week has me fully in fall baking mode. Around here, it feels like mid-to-late October: chilly, colorful, and perfect for cozy baking days.

These muffins disappeared the second I baked them. I made a few with chocolate chips just for my sister and little brother, Oslo — they’re obsessed! They’re easy enough to make with kids, and Oslo loves adding the chocolate chips. They pack beautifully for school lunches, and they’re great for a fall gathering.

While Asher and Oslo are team chocolate chip, my mom and I love them with toasted, chopped pecans. They feel perfectly autumn, and add a lovely crunch.

Here are the details

Ingredients

• apple cider – I love a spiced apple cider, no added sugar 
• salted butter 
• vanilla extract 
• eggs
• honey – I recommend a thicker raw honey
• apple butter – use my homemade, it’s the best
• dark brown sugar 
• all-purpose flour, you can use whole wheat too
• baking powder
• cinnamon 
• nutmeg
• all-spice 
• cloves 
• salt 
• honeycrisp apples 
• toasted pecans or chocolate chips – optional

And for the Topping

• melted butter
• cinnamon 
• granulated sugar

Tools for Success

For these muffins, you’ll just need the basics — a standard 12-cup muffin pan lined with paper liners, a good mixing bowl, and a small pot to boil the cider and concentrate all that cozy apple flavor.

Steps

Step 1: boil the cider

I love using spiced cider — no sugar added! Boil the cider on the stove until it’s reduced to about 1 cup. This concentrates the flavor and makes each muffin especially delicious with lots of cozy apple flavor.

Step 2: make the batter

Mix the browned butter with the eggs, honey, apple butter, brown sugar, and vanilla. Add the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and cloves.

Stir in the chopped apples. I like to cut mine thinly with a mandolin, then chop them for little apple bits in every bite.

Step 3: bake the muffins

Fill the muffin cups almost to the top. Bake for about 30 minutes, until the tops are deeply golden and your kitchen smells incredible.

Step 4: add the topping

This next step is a yummy addition. Melt a bit more butter and brush the tops — and sides, if you’d like — of each muffin.

Mix the cinnamon and sugar together, then dip each warm muffin to coat. It’s like a cozy apple cider doughnut in muffin form!

These muffins aren’t too sweet — just perfectly spiced and moist with a subtle honey sweetness. Such a great fall treat to bake all season long (and even through the holidays).

Looking for more apple recipes? Here are a few ideas: 

Mini Apple Cider Cakes

Brown Butter Apple Blondies with Cinnamon Maple Glaze

Salted Maple Apple Tarte Tatin with Cinnamon Pumpkin Seeds

Cinnamon Spiced Apple Fritters with Vanilla Coffee Glaze

Baked Apple Cider Doughnuts with Cinnamon Maple Glaze

Lastly, if you make these Easy Apple Cider Honey Muffins, be sure to leave a comment and/or give this recipe a rating! Above all, I love hearing from you and always do my best to respond to each and every comment. And of course, if you do make this recipe, don’t forget to tag me on Instagram! Looking through the photos of recipes you all have made is my favorite!

Every September, I announce on Instagram, both officially and emphatically: “It’s fall, y’all.” It’s a tradition no one asked for, yet I continue to deliver on dutifully year after year. This announcement doesn’t come when the mornings start to feel chilly, the air starts to feel crisp, or the first leaves start to fall, but rather when all three happen at the same time. This year, that moment came surprisingly early—right after Labor Day—which meant an earlier start to fall baking. The first thing I always make after my officially unofficial declaration of fall? Apple pie.

While this website boasts no shortage of apple pie recipes (we’ve got four of them, to be exact), Stella Parks’ easy, old-fashioned version is the simplest. Unlike many recipes in which you have to pre-cook your apples to achieve a succulent pie filling, Stella’s skips that step entirely while still producing a pie with a thick, saucy filling. Her easy trick is to macerate the apples. 

Why (and How) You Should Macerate Your Apples

When making an apple pie, you want to draw out as much liquid as possible from the fruit so you don’t waterlog the crust, and you also want to make sure the apples are tender. Many apple pie recipes call for pre-cooking your apples to solve those problems, but this can be time-consuming, given that it’s a hands-on task. If the delicate apple slices aren’t monitored closely while cooking, they can quickly overcook, resulting in mushy fruit. Macerating apples helps break down the fruits’ structures and reduces their volume—no cooking or pot-watching required.

While we recommend macerating in a zip-top bag to limit the apples’ exposure to air, you can use a bowl as long as you cover it tightly with plastic wrap pressed directly into the slices. Even then, you should still expect some oxidation. After peeling, quartering, and coring the apples, cut them into half inch-thick slices, making sure they’re as uniform as possible—this will ensure there is an even surface area across all the slices and that they all break down and release their juices at about the same rate of time. Once your apples are sliced, add them to the bag (or bowl) with the brown sugar, spices, and salt called for in Stella’s recipe. From there, the apples need to sit for at least three hours at room temperature, or up to eight hours in the fridge, which gives you plenty of time to make, roll, and shape your pie crust. During this resting time, the tart juice from the apples will collect at the bottom of the bag. Flavored with brown sugar and spices, this liquid acts as a concentrated syrup in the pie filling. 

How to Turn Macerated Apples Into Pie Filling

To ensure the pie filling is nice and thick, we recommend adding a touch of tapioca starch to the apples. This ingredient absorbs excess liquid, thickening the filling without making it gloopy. Add the tapioca starch to the bag of apples after macerating and before baking, then zip it back up and give it a good shake. (You’ll want to use about 1 ounce per 4 1/2 pounds of apples.) Waiting to add the starch after all the juices release from the apples ensures the starch will absorb evenly into the liquid. From there, you’re ready to tuck your apples into the pie plate. (The most exciting part…besides eating the actual pie.) 

What Type of Apples Should You Use for a Juicy, But Not Mushy Pie?

Some apple pie recipes suggest using a variety of apples for a more complex flavor. Different apple cultivars, however, have different textures and flavors, and using an assortment may have disastrous results. Some may break down more quickly and release more liquid than others, creating a watery, mushy pie with unevenly cooked apples. For the best taste and texture, we recommend using one variety of apples per pie. We like tart apples like Granny Smiths, since their high pectin levels hold onto their shape nicely in the oven, keeping the filling thick instead of runny. For extra depth of flavor, we incorporate brown sugar and warm spices.

The Takeaway

Macerating your apples eliminates the common apple pie-baking step that calls for pre-cooking the fruit. It’s an easy, hands-off technique that minimizes cleanup and requires little more than apples, brown sugar, spices, a little salt, and a zip-top bag. The maceration process creates a syrup that we include in the apple filling for extra flavor, and a small addition of tapioca starch helps thicken that filling. The result is a saucy, luscious apple pie that you’ll want to make all season long. 

It’s fall, y’all!!! 

September 2024

Our 45 Most Popular Back-to-School Recipes and Bake Sale Treats that will win everyone over No matter what you’re up to this month or next, everyone is heading back to school and back to work. Today I’m sharing some of our most loved easy dinners and effortless desserts perfect for this busy, exciting time of year. Below you’ll find everything from effortless muffins to bake for an on-the-go breakfast, 30-minute meals, crockpot dinners the whole family loves, and some of our most baked-up, bake-sale treats (peanut bars and homemade rice krispie treats!). They’re all so good!

It’s so odd to me how much I love this time of year. Growing up, I was the girl who really disliked school more than anyone. I had so much anxiety around being in a classroom all day long. It made my childhood and teenage years so hard.

But yet, I always found so much comfort and joy in the early back-to-school season. This time of year means that cozy fall days are coming, Sunday night football is back, and all our favorite TV shows will soon be returning for their fall season. Families are settling back into everyday back-to-school routines after a summer of fun, while the rest of us are diving back into work and fall projects.

In the last month+, I’ve been getting many requests for easy back-to-school recipes. After doing a lot of digging through our recipe archive, I realized that we have so many yummy recipes that are perfect for back to school!

You can refer back to this post all year long. It’s full of past HBH gem recipes!!

Enjoy these recipes and happy back-to-school, back-to-work season!

Easy Dinners

Crockpot Creamy Chicken and Dumplings

Cider Braised Pot Roast with Crispy Sage Butter Potatoes

One Pot Cajun Ranch Chicken Pasta

30 Minute Thai Peanut Chicken Ramen

Cheesy Zucchini Chicken and Rice Bake

Healthier Homemade One Pot Hamburger Helper

Crispy Chipotle Chicken Tacos with Cilantro Lime Ranch

Better Than Takeout Dan Dan Noodles

One Pan Lemon Pepper Yogurt Chicken and Rice

Sheet Pan Honey Buffalo Chicken with Broccoli

Creamy Homestyle Chicken Noodle Soup

Tomato Cheddar Chicken and Rice Bake

Super Easy Homemade Cheesy Spaghetti O’s

Creamy White Chicken Chili

Crockpot Hamburger Helper

One Pan Herb Butter Chicken and Zucchini Rice Pilaf

Zucchini Cheddar Chicken Noodle Casserole

Red Wine Braised Pot Roast

Apple Cider Smothered Chicken

Crockpot Garlic Butter Chicken Meatballs with Creamy Orzo

Crockpot Crispy Buffalo Chicken Tacos with Jalapeño Ranch

Baked Crunchy Hot Honey Chicken

Broccoli Cheddar Chicken and Noodle Casserole

Garlic Butter Creamed Corn Chicken

Bake Sale Treats – that will win everyone over!

Frosted Soft Strawberry Brown Sugar Bars

Homemade Baked Frosted Chocolate Donuts

Homemade Hostess Cupcakes

Any Fruit Oat and Pretzel Bars

Easy Apple Butter Zucchini Bread

5 Ingredient Magic Cookies

Lunchroom Chocolate Peanut Butter Bars

Spooky Homemade Twix Bar

Toasted Marshmallow K-Bars

Chocolate Chunk Coconut Banana Bread

Soft and Crinkly Brown Sugar Peanut Butter Cookies

Healthier Homemade Nutter Butter Cookies

Mini Blueberry Muffins

Nutter Butter Cookie Bars

Homemade Vegan Peanut Butter Twix Bars

No-Bake Dark Chocolate Oatmeal Cookie Bars

Cinnamon Sugar Swirled Apple Butter Brea

Blender Zucchini Chocolate Chip Oatmeal Muffins

Frosted Brown Sugar Cinnamon Pop Tart Bars

Cinnamon Crunch Swirled Banana Bread

Toasted Marshmallow Caramel Rice Krispie Treats

Blender Chocolate Chip Peanut Butter Banana Muffins