Tuesday, October 21, 2008

Magical Pumpkin Muffins Two Ways -- Tuesdays with Dorie

It's not every day that you replace your 'old standby' recipe, especially for a special seasonal treat like pumpkin muffins. We love pumpkin muffins here so I was really excited when Kelly of Sounding My Barbaric Gulp chose Dorie's Pumpkin Muffins, you can visit her page for the recipe. I do have a favorite pumpkin muffin recipe, from an old Polish cookbook, that I usually use, but I am always willing to try another. Thanks for a great choice Kelly, these are my new favorite pumpkin muffins! Do you want to know the best part? Everyone in my family liked these, yes, even my super picky husband, he requested I make a second batch tomorrow 'plain' (he doesn't like add ins), and I'll be happy to oblige. I'm just happy that out of the past almost 20 weeks of TWD recipes I've tried he finally really really likes one. My kids loved them too, and come on, you know I loved them :)
I decided to skip the suggested add-ins, pecans, golden raisins, and sunflower seeds, they sound wonderful and I will be sure to try them at some point, but making these I knew I needed to do something chocolate -- in the pantry I had some mini M&Ms baking bits, perfect! I made these mostly for the kiddos. I usually make mini pumpkin chocolate chip loafies around Halloween, I call them mini Halloween breads, chocolate and pumpkin, is there anything more Halloween? I also did a 'grown-up' version with dried Michigan cherries (yum!) and honey roasted sliced almonds (Almond Accents.)

I had enough batter to fill my new silicone itty bitty bundt pan, and with the left over bit of batter I used my baby bundt pan (bigger than the itty bitty) and made two giant baby bundt pumpkin muffins, did you catch all that? I did use a whole teaspoon of cinnamon, 3/4 teaspoon, really? That's just silly. Spice is nice. Also, I baked at 350 for 20 minutes. I feel really bad for anyone who tried these at 400 for 25 minutes and ended up with burned bottoms. Not your fault! We bake a lot of muffins (usually every Monday we have muffin Mondays and bake a batch for the week) and after making tons and tons of muffins I never bake at anything higher that 375, and 99% of the time I do 350, just to be safe. You can always keep them in the oven a little longer, but you can't really salvage burned muffins :(

My husband called this one a psychedelic pumpkin muffin...

"Magical Pumpkin Muffin Forest"


Please welcome these delicious muffins to Nummy Kitchen's TWD Top Five!

Tuesdays with Dorie Top Five

1. Dimply Plum Cake
2. Pumpkin Muffins
3. Apple Cheddar Scones
4. Black and White Banana Loafies
5. Lenox Almond Biscotti

11 comments:

Engineer Baker said...

Yay for finally finding one that's a winner with your husband! And seriously, mini m&ms have to be the cutest things ever.

Cathy said...

Andrea, you KNOW that I'd still visit you even if you didn't have the coolest kitchen gadgets in the world, but I love how I can count on coming to Nummy Kitchen and seeing the most fabulous, season/task specific equipment in the world. That orange pumpkin muffin tin is just perfect -- I want one! I love your muffins with the mini-m&ms; I think I'll do that for my kids next time. They liked them with the raisins, but the m&ms will definitely be a bigger hit. Glad that your family loved these, and that they scored a place on your Dorie top 5 list!

Anonymous said...

i'll bet the kids loved their muffins! i love that orange pumpkin muffin tin, so cool!

Amanda said...

Wow how colorful! I never considered M&Ms :) I made mine with chocolate chips and they were divine!

Dewi said...

Andrea,
You are so imaginative,they all look so scrumptious! Delicious.

Anonymous said...

Love the psychedelic muffin! Picky husbands, what are we going to do with them?! :P

Flourchild said...

I LOVE your idea of using M&Ms..perfect fun look! I know my kids would have gone crazy over them. Im glad you liked them!

Nancy/n.o.e said...

The best part of TWD: finding a new favorite recipe. I'm with you - the Dimply Cake is my #1, in fact I just made it for the SIXTH time today (with apples). The m&m muffins are cute, but I'm loving the idea of the sour cherries; they are an obsession of mine. I didn't use them in these muffins because, well, I was embarrassed to say in one more post "Yup, sour cherries again". But the very best are plain - I so agree with your husband.

Sihan said...

that sure looks magical orite. Love the splash of colors!

Flourchild said...

I going to post that pumpkin bread recipe in the next few days..so keep a look out for it! Thanks for stopping by!

chocolatechic said...

M&M's great idea.

Related Posts with Thumbnails