We came home after a beautiful weekend in Fire Island to a muffin-less house; well, it wasn’t supposed to be muffinless, but the banana muffins I made did not survive their weekend abandonment. I’d made another batch at the same time and brought it to Fire Island, and those were still fine this morning, so I have no idea what went wrong. We came home, there was mold, it was gross, and I pitched them.
I needed new muffins, and didn’t have ripe bananas, so I went back to an old recipe. I made these a long time ago, long before I started blogging, and I’ve learned a lot since then so I decided to make some changes and see how things went.
It started with pumpkin.
I used a little more than a cup, then added the sugar, using 3/4 of a cup of brown and half a cup of white instead of all white as the recipe suggested. Next up, I used plain yogurt instead of applesauce, hoping to make the muffins fluffier. Then I added a half cup of water.
Finally I threw in two eggs, then about half a teaspoon of vanilla, which wasn’t in the recipe at all.
It all looked very unappetizing, I admit.
I stirred. It looked better after that.
Then I put the dry ingredients together. I used whole wheat white flour instead of all purpose, and increased almost all the spices: cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. I didn’t change the amount of ground cloves, but I did add in some pumpkin pie spice at the end, just sprinkling it out into the bowl. I whisked it all together.
The recipe said to gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet, but I missed that bit until after I’d dumped it in.
I stirred just enough to combine the ingredients, without overmixing.
Then I filled the muffins cups. It said to make 16 muffins, odd as that seemed, so that’s what I did. I added five cinnamon chips to the top of each, in tribute to my lost banana muffins.
I had heated the oven to 375; once I put in the first tray I lowered the temperature to 350. I thought 15 minutes would do it, but I was wrong, they were done at 21 minutes. Both trays took exactly the same amount of time.
They looked good when they came out, smelling of pumpkin and spice.
They looked even better when I took them out of the tray.
My experience with pumpkin muffins is that the always taste best the next day, but I had one of these tonight and it’s pretty good. Nice crumb, warm spices, I’ll know tomorrow for sure, but I might have to have another one before the night is out.
Addendum: These are winners. Delicious in the morning. I think I could even cut out more of the sugar, and they’ll be even more delicious, relying more on the spices than the sweetness. But they are delicious and a big hit at work too. They don’t taste low fat at all, you’d never know!
LOW FAT PUMPKIN MUFFINS RECIPE (original)
My version of Low Fat Pumpkin Muffins (adapted from Heather Drive)
Makes 16 muffins.
ingredients:
1 2/3 cup whole wheat white flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 1/2 heaping teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 – 3/4 teaspoon fresh grated nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon cloves
1/4 – 1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1 cup pumpkin
1/2 cup plain lowfat yogurt
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup white sugar
1/2 cup water
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
cinnamon chips (5 per muffin)
directions:
Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Spray baking tins or line with muffin cups. (This makes 16 muffins.)
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices.
In a separate bowl, mix the rest of the ingredients.
Add the flour and spices to the second bowl, and stir just until combined.
Spoon into muffin tins and add 5 cinnamon chips.
Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees and bake for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into a the muffins comes out clean. Cool in tin for 5-10 minutes before removing.
Eat.
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