Pumpkin Muffins

My absolute favorite fall flavor is pumpkin; I can’t get enough of the stuff. You can put it in pie, cookies, cake, even butter and I’ll eat it! This week though I needed a quick breakfast option, so I chose muffins. Mmmmm cake for breakfast -- you can’t go wrong with that!

I picked this Ellie Krieger recipe and made a few changes to it after reading some of the comments. The original recipe calls for pumpkin seeds to be sprinkled on top of the muffins. I didn’t have any, so I subbed in chopped walnuts. I also doubled all of the spices to make it extra flavorful and added in some raisins.

There’s no other way to say it other than I adore these muffins! They are so light and spongy, even though they have whole wheat flour in them, and the pumpkin and spice flavor is right on. It’s pumpkin perfection!

Pumpkin Muffins
Adapted from Ellie Krieger’s Pumpkin Muffins

Ingredients

• Cooking spray
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole-grain pastry flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 3/4 cup packed dark brown sugar
• 3 tablespoons unsulphered molasses
• 1/4 cup canola oil
• 2 large eggs
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 cup lowfat buttermilk
• 1/4 cup raisins
• 1/4 chopped walnuts

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Coat a 12-cup muffin pan with cooking spray.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the all-purpose and whole-wheat flours, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, cloves, and nutmeg.

In a large bowl, whisk the sugar, molasses, oil and 1 egg until combined. Add the other egg and whisk well. Whisk in the pumpkin, vanilla and raisins. Whisk in the flour mixture in 2 batches, alternating with the buttermilk. Whisk just until combined.

Pour the batter into the prepared muffin pan and sprinkle with the walnuts. Tap the pan on the counter a few times to remove any air bubbles. Bake for 20 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center of 1 of the muffins comes out clean.

Let cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes. Run a knife around the muffins to loosen them and unmold. Cool completely on the rack.