pumpkin chocolate chunk multigrain muffins

These muffins are descended from the Chocolate Pecan Muffin recipe out of my all-time favorite vegan cookbook, Hearty Vegan Meals for Monster Appetites (p. 53). As with most beloved and oft-made recipes, this one has undergone several modifications. So many, in fact, that I can no longer read the overlapping lines of text that fill the page and crowd the margins. Subbing steel cut oats for the wheat germ, and omitting chopped pecans are the only changes that never vary. Here is the version I make most often.

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I highly recommend frosting these with a thin layer of chocolate, such as Kamran Siddiqui’s easy cocoa frosting (from his book Hand Made Baking, p. 136).

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1 cup almond milk
1/4 cup neutral oil (sunflower, grapeseed, peanut)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup golden brown sugar, lightly packed
1 cup pumpkin puree (if homemade, be sure to drain)
2 cups spelt flour (white, whole, or a combination)
1/3 cup steel cut oats
1/2 cup stone-ground cornmeal
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
1/3 cup chopped chocolate

Position rack in center of oven. Preheat to 375. Prepare muffin tins with coconut oil: 16 standard-sized tins, or 12 standard and 2 jumbo-sized tins. I like to pop them in the fridge while I mix up the batter, so the oil does not melt and pool in the bottom of the muffin cups.

In a large bowl, whisk together the milk, oil, sugar, pumpkin puree, and vanilla extract. Add the cornmeal and steel cut oats, and set aside for a few minutes so that the grains can hydrate.

In a medium bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder and salt. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet. Add the chocolate chunks and stir again. Fill the muffin tins 3/4 full.

Bake on center rack of oven at 375 degrees for 25-28 minutes, until tops are golden.

Cool completely before frosting.

Prep time: 10 minutes | Cook time: 25 minutes