Pumpkin-Crumb Muffins-The toughest critic of my food in the house is definitely my baby. She is one and a half or I guess technically 19 months old. She is a great gage on how well a recipe turned out because she is completely honest and does not worry about sparing my feelings. If she likes the food, she eats it. If she doesn’t like the food a very dramatic display of her wiping out her mouth and scraping her tongue with her fingers ensues, she follows up by throwing the said food onto the floor and screaming as if she’s been insulted or injured. It’s much cuter than it sounds! Anyway, every now and then, I get the reaction where she completely stuffs her mouth and then points and grunts for more. If she really loves it, these grunts turn into insistent screams. Today, I got the insistent screams and so I must say that these are currently, in the baby’s humble and quiet opinion (LOL), the best pumpkin muffins around. Oh, and there’s an optional cream cheese filling! Happy Cooking!!!!!
crumb topping
crumb topping
1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour
1/8 cup light brown sugar
4 Tablespoons butter (room temperature and cut into chunks)
Instructions for Crumb Topping
1. Put all of the ingredients into a bowl and stir them with a fork.
2. Start mashing and stirring the butter with the fork until it looks like you have crumbs.
3. Set this mixture to the side.
Ingredients for the Muffin Batter
2 cups whole wheat pastry flour
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 Tablespoon pumpkin pie spice *see note
1 stick butter (room temperature)
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon maple extract
Instructions for Pumpkin Muffin Batter
The wet ingredients look like this when mixed.
1. Pre-heat your oven to 350°F and prepare a muffin pan with cooking spray or butter and flour.
2. Combine the flour, salt, baking soda, baking powder, and pumpkin spice in a large bowl.
3. In a medium bowl, cream the butter and brown sugar.
4. Scrape the sides and bottom of the bowl.
5. Add the eggs, pumpkin, milk, and maple extract to the butter and sugar and mix-this will not come together, just mix it until it looks uniform.
6. Make a well in the center of your dry ingredients and add your wet ingredients into the well.
7. Mix to combine.
8. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin pan. Fill the muffin cups about 3/4 of the way.
9. Spoon about 1 Tablespoon of crumb topping onto each one and mash it down a little tiny bit into the batter.
10. Bake your pumpkin muffins at 350°F for about 20 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean.
well in the dry ingredients
Filling for the Pumpkin Muffins (optional)
4 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
4 Tablespoons butter, room temperature
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
8 ounces powdered sugar
Instructions
1. Cream the cream cheese and butter together.
2. Mix in the vanilla.
3. Mix in the powdered sugar adding it half at a time.
4. Fill a piping bag fitted with a #2 tip with the cream cheese filling.
5. Pipe the filling into the pumpkin muffins from the bottom – see video.
yield 12 muffins
*You can make your own pumpkin pie spice by combining equal amounts of nutmeg, cinnamon, and allspice and half as much ground cloves.
i.e. – 1 tsp nutmeg, cinnamon, and allspice and 1/2 tsp ground cloves
**You can also roast your own sugar pumpkin instead of using canned pumpkin puree, but most of us don’t have the time- especially in the morning!
Check out this “how to” video!
Hi :), my name's Alicia!
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