Pumpkin Doughnut Muffins

[underused]

Yeah, I said it.



We pulled the first pumpkin out of the garden today. 'Tis now officially the season for Pumpkin Flavoured Everything.

This is one of our favourites from the inescapable Martha Stewart. It's a basic muffin made extraordinary--as so many things can be--with a decadent coating of butter and cinnamon sugar. (There are a bunch of top-notch pumpkin recipes on that site.)

One tip and one suggestion: Use regular milk if you don't have buttermilk, it's fine; using salted butter in the coating gives a tasty salty/sweet effect.

One caution: Plan to eat them within a couple of days; they won't hold up much longer. Just between us, I don't think it'll be problem. These are pretty much perfect.

INGREDIENTS

10 tbsp (1 1/4 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature, plus more for pan
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1 tsp salt
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground allspice
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 1/4 cups pumpkin puree
3/4 cup brown sugar
2 large eggs

Preheat oven to 350 F, and butter/flour a couple of muffin tins (this recipe will make about a dozen and a half).

Mix flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and allspice and set aside.
In another bowl, whisk together buttermilk and pumpkin puree. Set aside

In a large bowl, using an electric mixer, beat butter and brown sugar until light and fluffy. Beat in eggs, one at a time, scraping down bowl as needed. With mixer on low, add flour mixture in three additions, alternating with two additions pumpkin mixture, and beat to combine.

Spoon 1/3 cup batter into each muffin cup and bake until a toothpick inserted in centre of a muffin comes out clean, 30 minutes.

Let muffins cool in the pan for a five minutes or so. They need to be cool enough to handle (and not fall apart), but warm enough so the coating adheres well. The first one or two will be hot, but the butter and sugar will stick to your fingers and made a deliciously protective coating. ☺

FOR THE SUGAR COATING

3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/4 cup butter, melted

In a medium bowl, combine granulated sugar and cinnamon.

One at a time, remove muffins from pan, brush all over with butter, then toss to coat in sugar mixture. Let muffins cool completely on a wire rack.

Once again, the complete original recipe is here.

Comments

[amidthestars]

WHAT. How did I not comment on this sooner. These sound incredible. I would like to make them immediately.

[underused]

You definitely should. If you take some to work you'll be a superstar. (Not that you aren't already.)

QUESTIONS: Do I need to specify the pumpkin puree should be cooked? Do people ever puree raw pumpkin? And if they did, would that probably be fine anyway? I don't know why I'm asking you this--it just popped into my head...

[amidthestars]

I have never pureed pumpkin, so it's not something I would know unless I looked it up. If I made this, I would probably use a canned puree (because I don't have a food processor) and I think that stuff comes cooked?

[underused]

It certainly does. I think I assume everyone gets that the canned stuff is cooked (so if you were using fresh pumpkin you'd assume you had to cook that, too). But then I remember that loads of people don't cook or bake much (if at all) so why would they know that?

[full_metal_ox]

Not to mention that the raw food community routinely raw-purees damn near anything, particularly for smoothies and the like:

http://www.therawtarian.com/raw-pumpkin-puree-recipe

[underused]

Exactly. But the second question, then, is could you use raw pureed pumpkin? Because it's so fine, wouldn't it be like using shredded raw carrots in carrot cake?

Tbh, now I'm considering trying shredded pumpkin in the next batch just to see what happens!