Recipe: Pumpkin Apple Muffins

Let’s just start by saying I was simply too lazy in the couple weeks before Halloween to take that last required step in pursuing a carving kit in order to carve the 2 pumpkins I ordered. So, as a last minute desperate attempt in refusing to allow both of my poor pumpkins to go to complete waste, I painted a colorful little girlish face on one of the pumpkins. Needless to say, I obviously decided I would do all of this decorating on Halloween night when I should have been adorning my person with nerdy steampunk Ariel accessories instead. To be expected, my procrastination culminated in an ultra-short lived Halloween night- but for the record- I fully blame my lack of motivation from my spooky surf session induced exhaustion. Anyway, on the days following my lazy All Hallows Eve debacle, I was forced to witness the atrocity that was the poor, lonely, leftover pumpkin staring me down daily from its dark spot in our unused living room. It was a sad scenario I had clearly caused. That is when I decided I couldn’t take it anymore- by golly that pumpkin would not go to waste on my watch! Thus began my research of all the crazy, wonderful things you can do with uncarved Halloween pumpkins.

smm_receipt_pumkinapplemuffins_pumkins
Turns out the first step to making pretty much anything from a pumpkin is to turn the pumpkin into a puree. Luckily you don’t need a fairy godmother to accomplish this – you shall only have to cook it instead. So I took my entire pumpkin, halved and gutted it, topped the slices with sea salt, then roasted in the oven face down on a lightly oiled baking sheet for nearly an hour or so.

Once baked, I let the pumpkin cool and after I stripped it of its mushy flesh and then took the flesh and blended (with a bit of water for the sake of the blender; you can also use a food processor which is probably the best option). All said and done, I had myself about a gallon of pumpkin puree. I’m not gonna lie- I lollygagged and spent the next couple days adding cream and veggies, experimenting with soups and sauces, using it here and there on a smaller scale. But I needed to get rid of this pumpkin! Luckily, among my pumpkin-doting research, I stumbled upon an amazingly simple pumpkin apple streusel muffin recipe that had a ba-zillion positive reviews (…okay only 727 reviews). I adapted the recipe slightly and since it had plenty of sugar already, I opted to cut out the streusel sugar topping altogether keeping it more grab n’ go friendly in the end.

Below is the recipe for the Pumpkin Apple Muffins I made, which take 15 min prep time and 35-40 min cook time.

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour or whatever substitutable baking flour you prefer.
2 cups white sugar or whatever suitable baking sweetener you prefer i.e., coconut sugar. Just make sure you use the equivalent properly for batter consistency (this may take some googling on your part).
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice or I used a dash of nutmeg, cinnamon and allspice because I’m a rebel, baby. Also because WHO HAS PUMPKIN SPICE JUST LYING AROUND??
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
2 eggs lightly fluffed with a fork
1 can of pumpkin puree or approx. 2 cups of your own homemade puree (give or take some tablespoons, I added a little extra because I had so much to get rid of)
1/2 cup vegetable or canola oil- I prefer to use a mixture of veggie and coconut oil whenever I can- for both the health benefits and the tropical heavenly taste it brings.
2 cups of apple (approx. 2 apples) peeled, cored and chopped

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1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees and lightly grease your muffin pan’s cups. You can also use cupcake liners! Keep in mind you may have to bake a couple batches like I did depending on the size of your pan (I have a 12 cup pan).
2. In a large bowl, toss together; the flour, 2 cups sugar, pumpkin pie spice or your special spice mixture. Then add the baking soda and salt.
3. In a separate bowl, mix together eggs, pumpkin puree and oil. Add pumpkin mixture to flour mixture; forking just to moisten. Toss in the apple chunks. Spoon the batter into prepared muffin cups and bake in preheated oven for 35 to 40 minutes, or until a butter knife lightly inserted into a muffin comes out clean.
Voila! Pumpkin Apple Muffins! A cinch wasn’t it? I’ve done a very similar recipe for savory muffins since I’m not big on sweets and consuming sugar. All I did was substitute Regular Bisquick (or Gluten-Free) instead of the flour mixture above. To be honest, I love Bisquick and I use it for everything, not to mention it worked wonders for my Sausage Broccoli Cheddar Morning Muffins! The great thing about muffins is you can make them with ANYTHING and they are a great way to ease the mornings before work- or surfing with little prep that could last the whole week for breakfast options… or in my case two days if your roommates and/or partner gobble them up. Dang!
Recipe ingredients adapted from Allrecipes.com

 

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All Photos are provided by Christine Simko
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