After preparing several dishes in advance for a Thanksgiving meal, I was looking for ways to use up a half can of Libby’s Pumpkin and some leftover mashed sweet potatoes. Having just made the recipe for Deep Dark Fudgy Brownies on the back of a bag of King Arthur’s One for One Gluten Free flour alternative, I noticed their recipe for banana muffins had an option for pumpkin. Both brownie and pumpkin muffins are delicious and your flour-loving guests won’t notice the difference in texture.
This recipe uses up cooked and leftover fall vegetables like pumpkin, sweet potatoes and butternut squash. It might work for cooked and mashed acorn squash and zucchini as well. If you try those options, let me know how it turns out! Note: this recipe calls for both baking powder (usually found in a can) and baking soda (usually found in a box).
- 1-3/4 Cups flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
- 1-2 teaspoons cinnamon
- 1/2 – 1 teaspoon powdered ginger
- 1/2 – 1 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon allspice
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 Cup brown sugar, packed tightly into cup
- 1-1/2 cups cooked and mashed pumpkin, sweet potatoes, and/or butternut squash mixture
- 1/2 Cup canola or other vegetable oil
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 1-1/2 Cups chopped walnuts or pecans
- 1 Cup roasted and salted pumpkin seeds
You will also need muffin tins and liners for 18 muffins, and two large mixing bowls. A standing mix-master is very helpful, but the recipe can be made with a hand mixer. Without nuts and seeds, this recipe makes 12 muffins. With nuts and seeds, it makes 18 – an odd number since muffin tins usually contain a dozen cups. If you don’t have a 6-muffin tin, it is fine to fill up only half of the cups in a 12-muffin tin.
Preheat oven to 375 °F.
Spray muffin tins with Pam or other vegetable spray, then line with paper muffin cups. This serves two purposes: it makes for a very easy cleanup and it is the most reliable method for transferring whole baked muffins out of the tins.
Sift the flour, baking powder and soda, salt and spices together in a large mixing bowl. Add brown sugar and use a mixer to blend these dry ingredients.
In a separate bowl, pierce egg yolks with a fork, then add mashed vegetables, oil, vanilla. Mix to blend these wet ingredients well.
Using a mixer on low speed, combine the dry and wet ingredients into the largest bowl.
Stir in nuts and seeds and mix on low speed.
Using a 1/4 Cup measuring cup, scoop a level measure of this thick, dough-like batter into a paper lined muffin cup. Fill the other 17 cups in the same way.
Bake muffins at 375 °F. for 25 minutes.
Remove from oven and allow to cook in muffin tins for 10-15 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack to complete cooling or onto a plate to serve warm.
Yield: 18 muffins