Pumpkin Muffins

I saw a recipe for pumpkin muffins in the November 2008 issue of Gourmet Magazine. It looked great, but I tweaked it a bit - I swapped dried cranberries for raisins, substituted some whole wheat flour for some of the AP flour, and used cardamom instead of allspice, since that's what I had in the house. So this is basically the Gourmet recipe, but I made it something we'd prefer to eat in our home.

The Ingredients:



1/3 cup dried cranberries
1 ½ cups AP Flour
½ cup whole wheat flour
2 tsp baking powder
¼ tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
¾ tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground cardamom
1/8 tsp ground cloves
½ tsp salt
1 stick unsalted butter, melted and cooled
¾ cup packed light brown sugar
¾ cup canned pure pumpkin
¼ cup buttermilk
2 large eggs
1 tsp pure vanilla extract
¼ cup pumpkin seeds

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400° F. Soak cranberries in warm water to rehydrate while you make the rest of the batter.
2. Whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, spices and salt in large bowl.
3. In separate bowl, whisk together pumpkin, eggs, butter, brown sugar, buttermilk, and vanilla. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients, and stir until just combined. Drain cranberries, then add cranberries and pumpkin seeds to batter.
4. Divide batter among cups of muffin pan (if not non-stick, pray with pan spray before filling). Bake until toothpick comes out clean, about 20 minutes.


These are great! Moist, not too sweet, and they have a good amount of spice. I wanted something that would be a good cookie alternative for Boyfriend, and that I could eat for breakfast before work. This is definitely a recipe I'll make again!