Pumpkin Spice Muffins

With Halloween just around the corner, pumpkins are everywhere. And the big thing on every foodie's mind is what to make with them. You can roast pumpkin seeds, make a pumpkin pie or a batch of pumpkin muffins like I did.

Now, even though there's lots of pumpkins to be had, I made it easy on myself and used pumpkin puree for this recipe. And you should too. It's just too easy not to. And, there's a lot less mess to clean up afterwards. For this recipe, I combined the best of two recipes- Simply Recipes' pumpkin, ginger, nut muffins and The Seasonal Gourmet's pumpkin spice muffins. This recipe is great for a few reasons. It has lots of those Autumn spices like allspice, cinnamon, nutmeg and cloves and it's not greasy at all because it uses water and butter instead of oil.


Do you have any favorite pumpkin recipes? Any stews or a curry perhaps?

Pumpkin Spice Muffins (makes 12)

Ingredients
1 1/2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon allspice
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1 teaspoon ground or fresh ginger
pinch of salt

1 can (14 fl oz/398 ml) of pumpkin puree
1/3 cup melted butter
2 eggs, beaten
1/4 cup water

1 cups walnuts or pecans
2 tablespoons candied ginger

Directions
Preheat oven to 350. In a medium sized bowl, sift together the flour, salt, sugar, baking soda and spices.

Mix the pumpkin puree, melted butter, eggs and water together, then combine with the dry ingredients, until just incorporated. Fold in the candied ginger and chopped nuts.

Spoon mixture into a prepared muffin tin. As an option at this point, you could mix a little cinnamon and sugar together and top each muffin with a sprinkle of the cinnamon sugar and a few nut crumbles.

Bake for 25-30 minutes. Check to see if they're done with a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin. If it comes out clean, it's done. Cool on a rack.