I’ve never made anything pumpkin before, besides pumpkin pie or toasted pumpkin seeds. Some of my Facebook friends have been making Pumpkin Muffins, so I thought I’d make a batch. I had a can of pumpkin in my pantry, so I borrowed a Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffin recipe and made a batch.
Something I quickly realized- most pumpkin muffin recipes only call for 1 cup of pumpkin. A can of pumpkin has something like 4 cups in it! WOW. That’s a lot of pumpkin muffins if I have to quadruple the batch! I refrigerated the unused portion and figured I’d try a different recipe later in the week.
The first batch of muffins were good, the kids LOVED them, but I felt like they needed something more. I went to Allrecipes.com and found the exact same recipe- but in the comment section someone kindly posted what ingredients they added to jazz up the flavor some. More cinnamon, more nutmeg, more pumpkin, they added ginger, etc.
Knowing that my first batch was completely devoured in under 6 hours, I decided I would double the batch this time. After all, everyone in my family and daycare loves them, so why not?
The ‘enhanced’ recipe was fabulous! I will post it at the end of this note.
But what to do with the now 3/4 cup of leftover pumpkin? I put it back in the fridge and figured I’d make something else over the weekend. I was on the phone with a friend who was telling me about a delicous pumpkin and cream cheese cake roll that her mom makes…and that got me thinking…I have cream cheese…..I could make that! But I’ve made a rolled cake before and I surely didn’t feel like messing around with that! So I went back to allrecipes.com again and found a Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin with a streusel topping and decided I would make THAT!
D-E-L-I-C-I-O-U-S !!
After the kids stuff themselves silly with the muffins, I’ll freeze the leftovers and toss a few into the Grab’N’Go drawer for lunches!
Update: well, in the time it took to type this up, they ate all but 3 of the Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Muffins….and were too scared to try the Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins, so at least I have several of those left!
PUMPKIN CHOCOLATE CHIP MUFFINS
Ingredients:
3/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/4 cup water
1 1/2 cup flour
3/4 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground cloves
1 1/4 tsp ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
3/4 tsp ground ginger
1 cup chocolate chips
Directions:
Preheat oven to 400-degrees. Grease a muffin tray or use liners (or use a Demarle muffin pan!). Mix together the sugar, oil and eggs until creamy. Add the pumpkin and water and mix until smooth. In a separate bowl mix together the remaining dry ingredients (except the chocolate chips). Blend the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture and stir well. Add the chocolate chips once thoroughly mixed. Fill each muffin cup 2/3 full and bake for 20-25 minutes.
Elisa's Ramblings 
Raisins are great in pumpkin muffins! So are nuts (chopped pecans or walnuts) if you like such things.
I forgot about raisins….I remember eating some sort of muffin as a child with raisins in it, but didn’t remember it as being pumpkin. But that does sound good- maybe sometimes with chocolate chips and sometimes with raisin!
The “with raisins” was a big hit at dinner last night with our guests. I made the mini muffins with the flexible (Demarle?) pan and they popped right out. Just bake the mini’s a few minutes less than the full size muffins; I checked at 17-18 minutes and they were done according to the toothpick.