Pumpkin is a tough sell in our house. The kids love it but my husband is not a fan. Can’t stand the smell of it, doesn’t want to look at it, and he better not hear it’s in anything I’ve tried to feed him. He will not budge.
This makes it difficult to experiment much with pumpkin. I know I shouldn’t eat all of whatever I make, but if the kids don’t like it, I’m stuck, and I hate wasting food. As a child, my mother always insisted upon cleaning your plate at meals and ever since, I feel guilty if there’s a crumb left behind. While others consider pumpkin recipes the herald of Fall, in our house, we stick with apples–they’re safer.
An chose pumpkin this week, though, so pumpkin it was. I was a bit stumped on variations with this one–again, lack of experience utilizing pumpkin put me at a disadvantage–but thought it was a safe bet to change out the sugars for raw sugar and maple syrup. I sprinkled some raw sugar over the tops just before baking to give them a nice touch, but that seemed to get absorbed by the batter instead. They didn’t develop the crunchy crust I envisioned–perhaps a chunkier sugar crystal would have worked better?
A word of advice: don’t forget the baking soda. While my muffins taste just fine, they are dense like hockey pucks. This is a rookie mistake that we all make from time to time. Don’t do it!
Orange Pumpkin Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cups white whole wheat flour
- 1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
- 3/4 cup raw turbinado sugar
- 3/4 cup pure maple syrup
- 2 large eggs
- 1/3 cup extra virgin olive oil
- 1 cup organic canned pumpkin
- 1/3 cup orange juice
- 1 teaspoon grated dried orange peel
- 1-2 Tablespoons raw turbinado sugar for sprinkling
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees Fahrenheit. Line a 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, pumpkin spice, baking soda, baking powder, and salt. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, maple syrup, eggs, and oil.
- Add the pumpkin, orange juice, and orange peel, whisking until smooth.
- Add the dry ingredients to the wet and stir until just combined.
- Using a large cookie scoop, portion out the batter evenly among the 12 muffin cups.
- Sprinkle each with some raw sugar.
- Bake for 20-23 minutes, or until the tops spring back when lightly pressed.
- Cool in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely.
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Let’s take a look at the other pumpkiny muffins this week!
They look delicious, baking soda or no baking soda! And I love your little Halloween cups. You need to find an old folks home to bring unwanted treats to. Or maybe the teachers’ lounge in your children’s school? Nothing like baking what we love and then earning a few brownie points to boot. 🙂
The kids gave a thumbs up to the flavor, even if the muffins were dense. Which is good because I had no more canned pumpkin to make more this time. If I can’t get my kids to eat what I make, I usually bring it into work and they gobble it up. 🙂
The muffin liners are adorable. love all the changes you made this week! Happy #MuffinMonday Carrie!:)
My kids were so cute–they picked right up on the liners, asking if I used pumpkins because there was pumpkin in the muffins. 🙂 Happy #MuffinMonday!
I love pumpkin anything, but it’s nice to move away from the cinnamon/nutmeg/pie spice variation to something bright like orange. Bookmarking these to make with my stockpile of canned pumpkin 🙂
Love muffin Monday! These look so good!
These sound fantastic! As long as they tasted good, who needs baking soda 😉
I put chocolate chips in mine 🙂 Mmm I love a good pumpkin muffin!
What a cute treat for the Fall season!
Oh no, the hubs doesn’t like pumpkin! He’s missing out. Your muffins look delish, and I adore those liners.