Pumpkin Spice Muffins!

You don’t actually get into Halloween spirit without having something or another made with pumpkin.  I don’t cook pumpkin or squash much but I do bake. The debate was really between Pumpkin Pie and something in the form of a muffin or scone or cookie.  I went with muffins as they are easy and should be as close to foolproof as I can get for the first time baking with something new.

These are called Pumpkin Spice Muffins (at least I call them that).  The recipe that I got it from was from Looneyspoons and of course, they had another witty and long name, it was Pumpkin and Spice and Everything Nice.  Just to say, I followed everything to the recipe and only had two omissions. I’ll talk about that in a bit.

PUMPKIN SPICE MUFFINS (Looneyspoons Collection by Janet and Greta Podleski)

Makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 cup whole wheat flour

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (I made my own with 1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon, 1/4 tsp ground ginger and 1/4 tsp ground nutmeg)

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup canned pure pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)

1/2 cup plain low-fat yogourt

1/2 cup pure maple syrup

1/4 cup butter, melted

1 egg

1 tsp vanilla

1 cup finely grated carrots

1/2 cup mini semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven at 375F.  Spray a 12 cup muffin pan with cooking spray and set aside.

2. In a large bowl, combine flour, whole wheat flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking powder, baking soda and salt.  Set aside.

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together pumpkin, yogourt, maple syrup, butter, egg and vanilla.  Stir in carrots.  Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir using a wooden spoon just until moistened.  Fold in chocolate chips and walnuts.  Batter will be thick.

4. Divide batter evenly among 12 muffin cups.  Bake for 20-22 minutes or until wooden pick inserted in center of muffin comes out  clean.  Cool on wire rack.

 

Looks pretty good, right? I’m eating one of these as I’m typing up this post and its exceeded what I thought it’d taste like.  I was always worried that the pumpkin taste would be strong and it isn’t.  Its a well-balanced muffin.  Its not dry either so thats too my taste as well. I did make a few modifications. I had to take out the yogourt and chocolate chips from the recipe and instead of chopped walnuts, I put in chopped almonds.  Thats about all that I have to say. The taste is definitely pretty good.  I was pleasantly surprise and maybe will make it again next year.

Although, due to this recipe, I have the remaining can of pumpkin to use up and I have no idea what to do with it.  I’m pretty sure I’ll look for something randomly and make it.  I should be back with more pumpkin in some form of meal. Any suggestions?

As always, if you try out this recipe, please tell me how it turned out.  I’d love to know if you liked it or if you would make any changes to it, that sort of thing.