Pumpkin Muffins

We had one lone pumpkin still from last Fall’s harvest. It was definitely pushing the envelope of preservation and needed to get used.
My hubby loves pumpkin muffins. So I thought I’d respond to his “love letter” daisies (from the last post) with a little love of my own by making some Pumpkin Gems for him.


I like to have these freshly made for breakfast. In order to make that doable for me I combine all the wet ingredients in one bowl and all the dry ingredients in another the night before. Then when I get up in the morning I turn on the oven, spray oil the pans, combine the two bowls and throw it in while I go shower. This works with any muffins really.

Truth be told, I forgot for two days in a row to actually get up and combine the two bowls… I’m not a high functioner right out of bed.

It still worked out fine this morning.

Since I hate it when people blog about good food and then don’t post the recipe… here ya go:



Pumpkin gems
10 lg or 12 Medium muffins

Preheat oven to 350º
Grease muffin pan

In a small bowl combine:
½ cup bran and ¼ cup boiling water.
Set aside for 5 mins

In another small bowl soak;
1 cup raisins barely covered in hot water.

Blend together thoroughly with a wire wisk;
1 egg
2/3 cup honey

Stir in:
1 cup pumpkin, canned or fresh cooked & mashed (which I greatly prefer)
¼ c water
Soaked bran
Soaked raisins

Blend Dry ingredients together in a separate bowl:
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Blend dry ingredients into liquid ingredients just until mixed. Do not overmix.

Fill muffin cups almost full

Bake 20-25 minutes

Cool 5-10 minutes before removing from pan.

Now whenever we make muffins we take these healthy little goodies and then sprinkle brown sugar over them before we put them in to bake.

I know what you're thinkin... it changes the whole health factor… I try to mitigate that by using organic brown sugar hehe. But the truth is we like it… and we’re stickin to it.

Since I’ve been a muffin slacker lately and haven’t made any in a really long time I forgot about the brown sugar!

I know.

Nearly a disaster.

I gasped as they came out of the oven and I realized the error of my ways.

I quickly tried to sprinkle them in hopes that the existing heat would make it stick and all would be well.

It just kind of sat there on top… which is better than no brown sugar at all…. But not nearly as good as baked on.

And then it came to me.

“I have an idea!” I said. Everyone in my family becomes slightly concerned when they hear me say this… one never knows what’s coming.

So I head over to my studio/scraproom/giant mess that only I can find something in, and come back with this:

I knew my scrapping friends would like that.

I haven’t actually scrapped anything in quite a long time. I mostly take ridiculous numbers of photographs and store them for later.

But who among you has EVER thought… Hey I’ll use my embossing gun to melt brown sugar on my muffins??

Mmmhmmm that’s what I thought. I’m pretty sure I stand alone on this one.

And just for future reference it worked just ok. Still not nearly as good as baking it on but it kinda made it stick.


The final product. My love letter back to my hubby.


Oh and I couldn't help myself. I had to go out and grab a few of gifts from yesterday's post and plunk them on my counter as a reminder of how great my life is.