Cooking Corner: Pumpkin Spice Pecan Muffins

Fall is the time for pumpkins to parade around in their orange glory. Art is created with them, food is baked with them and drinks are drunk with them.

For this week’s “Pinterest Interest” column, we pinned two different recipes involving pumpkin on our Pinterest page.

The “Pumpkin Muffins” recipe came from a blog called “100 Days of Real Food” and the “Pumpkin Cupcakes” came from the blog “Everybody Loves Raymond … And Kat.”

These pumpkin muffins combine ingredients from both recipes mentioned above that will form a fall frenzy in your mouth.

In addition to filling the fall void that we have been waiting for all year, these muffins are also healthier than the average pumpkin muffins.

The reason they are healthier is because the recipe calls for honey instead of granulated sugar, coconut oil instead of vegetable oil and whole-wheat flour instead of bleached white flour.

The original recipe also called for 1/2 cup of coconut oil, but I found that the muffins didn’t need the extra oil. Therefore, I cut the oil amount down to 1/4 cup.

The sugar-crusted pecan topping was not necessary, however, I felt like the muffins needed some extra texture. Therefore, I found the sugar-crusted pecan recipe on the “Pumpkin Cupcakes” pin to be a great addition without being quite as heavy as a frosting or glaze.

Here are the simple steps toward making this fun fall muffin.

Directions
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Place the paper muffin cups into the muffin pan.

In the meantime, you may whisk together all of the dry ingredients in a large bowl. Once they are thoroughly mixed, create a hole in the mixture and add in your honey, oil, eggs and vanilla. Do not over mix -- this will make your muffins tough.

Finally, fold in the pumpkin puree. Once that is finished, fill each muffin cup 3/4 of the way full.

For the sugar-crusted pecan topping, melt the butter in a microwave safe bowl. Add the pecans. In a separate bowl, mix together the sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg. Once mixed, combine the ingredients together.

Place the coated pecans on a paper plate evenly spread out. Next, microwave for 45 seconds, and once they are finished in the microwave, simply sprinkle the mixture on each muffin.

Bake for roughly 18-20 minutes. Check for doneness by poking a toothpick in the center of each muffin and making sure it comes out clean.

This recipe should yield almost exactly a dozen muffins. Each muffin will contain around 250-300 calories, less if you substitute coconut oil for vegetable oil.


SKILL LEVEL:
Intermediate
What you will need:
12 paper muffin cups
1 paper plate
1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup coconut oil (or vegetable oil if you don’t have coconut oil)
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
Sugar-crusted pecan topping:
1/4 cup crushed pecans (optional)
1/2 tablespoon unsalted butter
1/8 cup granulated sugar
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
A pinch of ground nutmeg