Pumpkin Spice Muffin Recipe

A few weeks ago, I found canned pumpkin on sale at the grocery store, and since my family loves pumpkin pie (I can live very well without it, thanks) I stocked up.

But then I got to thinking about muffins. First thing in the morning, when my blood sugar is low, I am crabby and I just want something to shove into my mouth to make my stomach stop growling. I don't make good food decisions in that state of mind. I hate breakfast cereal, and most fruits served raw, and the traditional bacon and eggs is too much hassle before 10am. I would totally eat brownies for breakfast if that was the easiest food-like substance at my disposal.

Pumpkin Spice Muffins--for those who don't want my life story, the recipe PDF is below this photo.

pumpkin spice muffin recipe.pdf

Download PDF • 2.38MB

So muffins. I can make muffins later on in the day, they keep for several days (or you can freeze them for later), and they are delicious. Sometimes they even pose as something like healthy.

I had already tried the two pumpkin recipes in my muffin cookbook. One was both dry and bland (I don't want to have to put frosting on muffins to make them palatable), the other was a bit over-the top on the molasses. So I did an internet search for “moist pumpkin muffin recipe”, and lo-and-behold, I found a recipe which is touted as being “The Best Pumpkin Muffins {Ever}”. I made it exactly as written, and they are pretty darned awesome. Absolutely family (and friend) approved.

But.

I have an issue with nearly every recipe that I have ever tried that contains cinnamon and its pals nutmeg, cloves, allspice and ginger: I feel most recipes are far too stingey with the spices. Actually, I feel the same way about chocolate chips, vanilla and garlic. I generally will double those ingredients (though I hope never to see a recipe that contains all of those ingredients together. Yuck.)

On top of that, I am really trying to avoid having to move up a size in pants, and the curse of diabetes that runs in my family. I'm working to put the brakes on my sugar habit. Not "no sugar", just "less sugar".

That's pretty easy if you do a lot of cooking from scratch, but the catch is that I just won't sacrifice flavor in order to cut down on my sugar consumption. If it doesn't taste good, I'm not eating it. I don't care how healthy it is. So with those two issues in mind, I re-engineered the recipe to suit my own personal tastes and needs.  If there are plenty of other flavors, sugar becomes far less important in the "taste good" equation.

Without further ado, here's my version:

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

• 1 ¾ C all-purpose flour

• 1 C brown sugar

• 1 t. baking soda

• ½ t. baking powder

• ½ t. salt

• 4 t. ground cinnamon

• ½ t. ground cloves

• ½ t. ground nutmeg

• 2 eggs

• 1 can pumpkin puree

• ½ cup melted coconut oil

• 1 T milk

• 1 t. vanilla extract (make sure it says "Vainilla Pura", artificial vanilla flavor is not food)

*Preheat the oven to 425.

Get out your muffin pan and either line it with cupcake liners or grease it with cooking spray.

Sift all of the dry ingredients together in a large bowl and set aside. Don't skimp on this, nobody wants a bite of baking powder in their muffin!

In a small bowl stir the wet ingredients together until combined.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until just combined. The batter is going to be thick.

Scoop the batter into the muffin tin, being careful not to over-fill the liners. I like to use the bakery-style liners: They are nice and tall and don't let the batter burn onto the top of the muffin tin. They keep your hands cleaner when you're eating your muffin too.

Bake the first 5 minutes at 425, then reduce the oven temp to 375 (without peeking) for about 15-18 more minutes. Check with a toothpick for doneness. Or do like I do, and just tap one lightly with your finger. If it feels firm and springs back, it's done.

If you don't want soggy muffin liners, remove muffins immediately from the pan and let them cool on a cooling rack.

Once completely cool, they can be stored for a few days in an airtight container. But that's because of flies and other pests (both two and four-legged), they'll taste just fine if left uncovered.

Notes:

Yes, I'm sure you could probably use melted butter or vegetable oil instead of the coconut oil.

Homemade pureed pumpkin would be a little trickier. It's much runnier than the canned stuff, so at the very least you would want to omit the milk, and might have to increase the flour to stiffen up the batter. Let me know how it turns out if you give it a try.

pumpkin spice muffin recipe.pdf

Download PDF • 2.38MB