Pumpkin Muffins

We are taking this fall situation head on. I personally would like a giant pile of leaves to jump into. Kthnx.

While pumpkin spice lattes (and everything else) have been around for a few weeks now, I hadn't cracked open a can of pumpkin until this past week. And it's gonna be all downhill pumpkin from here! This recipe only required half a can of pumpkin, so I used the other half to make some pumpkin chili (pardon the ancient and terrible photos that went with this post, I was young).

Muffin Mondays are gaining popularity at the office so after last week's zucchini muffins, I took a poll on just how ready for fall people were. Would they prefer banana (no fall for me, please), apple (okay, I know, we're getting there) or pumpkin (wooo!! It's fall!!!!!)? The resounding winner was pumpkin. I also made these during the blood-moon eclipse so maybe they should be called Lunar Muffins...

For good measure, I threw some chocolate chips into half the batch because chocolate chip pumpkin anything is a great idea. Cookies, bread, muffins, you get the idea. We do the thing where we separate our dry and wet ingredients. I used the spices that smell like fall baking. No joke, I woke up the other morning smelling apple pie in the oven. It was a lie but it stuck with me.

I love the color of pumpkin, the burnt orange of the filling makes me feel all the warm fuzzies. The flour mixture is slowly poured into the wet ingredients and stirred gently until everything is combined. I like that for muffins, I can just use a good old fashioned wooden spoon and don't have to use a hand mixer. It helps that the butter was melted for this recipe.

I think there's some serious potential for cupcake liner companies to make a liner that has a 'fill here' line. Sometimes you get too much and they overflow (not a bad thing, necessarily) or you put too little and then you have a sunken cupcake/muffin. I know the expansion rates of the batter will vary by recipe but ya know, ball park estimate.

At any rate, I filled these about 3/4 of the way full and baked for 30 minutes or so. While the first batch baked, I sprinkled chocolate chips into the remaining batter. Great plan. All in all, there were 18 muffins out of all of this.

Let's keep the trend alive, more muffins next week!

Recipe
From Joy of Cooking

• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup milk
• 1 cup pumpkin puree 
• 1 cup brown sugar
• 1 stick unsalted butter, melted
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• Sprinkling of chocolate chips

1. Preheat the oven to 400 and line a muffin tin with liners (or spray with non-stick spray)
2. In a medium bowl, combine the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, maybe some cinnamon if you'd like).
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, eggs, milk, vanilla, pumpkin and melted butter. 
4. Once the wet ingredients are thoroughly combined, pour the dry ingredients into the wet while stirring gently.
5. Using a wooden spoon (or other stirring utensil), stir the wet and dry ingredients together until fully combined.
6. If you'd like, add the chocolate chips (or nuts) and fold into the batter.
7. Pour the batter into the muffin liners, filling 3/4 of the way full.
8. Bake for 30  minutes or until firm.