After making yesterday's pumpkin cheesecake brownies, I used the leftover canned pumpkin in a batch of iced pumpkin muffins. This is now one of my favorite pumpkin muffin recipes.
An Old Recipe From Gourmet
My intention was to use a recipe originally from Gourmet magazine, but I ended up making multiple changes. Which is not to say the original pumpkin muffin recipe from Gourmet needed much changing, but rather that it's a very flexible recipe and a baker can adjust it to various taste preferences without ruining it. Judging from the reviews, I'm not sure anyone made the recipe as written. Pumpkin muffins are one of those recipes that people always change. Same with banana muffins and oatmeal cookies.
Iced Pumpkin Muffins Notes
The muffins are not too sweet and they crown beautifully. For the chocolate chips, I used Toll House mini chocolate chips, but I think regular size chocolate chips would be fine.
More Fall-ish Recipes
Recipe
Iced Pumpkin Muffins
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose or white whole wheat flour (250 grams)
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ¾ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice**
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted (56 grams)
- ¼ cup vegetable oil (52 grams)
- ¾ cup packed dark brown sugar (160 grams)
- 1 cup canned pumpkin, generous cup (heaping a little) not pie filling
- ¼ cup buttermilk (56 grams)
- 2 large eggs
- 1 ¾ teaspoons vanilla extract
- ⅓ cup miniature chocolate chips
Icing:
- 1 tablespoon melted butter (14 grams)
- 1 cup powdered sugar (120 grams)
- ¼ teaspoon vanilla
- 2 tablespoons of milk or as needed
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 400°F. Spray 12 muffin tins with flour-added cooking spray or line with paper liners.
- Mix the flour, baking powder, baking soda, pumpkin pie spice, and salt together and set aside.
- In a mixing bowl, whisk together melted butter, oil, brown sugar, pumpkin, buttermilk, eggs, vanilla and chips. Add flour mixture to pumpkin mixture and stir until just combined.
- Divide batter among the 12 muffin cups. Bake until a wooden pick comes out clean, about 20 minutes. Cool on a rack for about 10 minutes, then remove from muffin tins and let cool completely.
- Mix the melted butter and powdered sugar together, coating the sugar with butter as best you can – mixture will be thick and lumpy. Stir in the vanilla. Add 1 tablespoon of milk and stir well. Continue adding milk 1 teaspoon at a time until you get an icing that's thin enough to drizzle but not so thin it will spread out when drizzled. Drizzle the icing over the cooled muffins. I sprinkled extra chips on top.
- ***If you don’t have pumpkin pie spice, you can substitute another ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon, ⅜ teaspoon ground ginger, a pinch of allspice and a pinch of cloves.
Mindy says
These were wonderful! Thanks for the recipe! I used just regular whole wheat flour and I loved the texture. My three year old asked for more and then asked if I could make them again when I said that they were all gone. Yeah!
Melanie Schoenhut says
Those are truly awesome! I never thought of putting the dried pumpkin seeds on top of the cupcakes. I should probably try this one. Thanks for the simple recipe.
Betty @ scrambled hen fruit says
These look yummy. I'm going to try them with winter squash (just because I have some of that and I don't have pumpkin.)I love the chocolate chips!
MannaMae says
Do you think this would work as a loaf? I just moved here and they have no cupcake tins (OMG!!!)
LilSis says
Thanks for the advice! When I make them, I'll let ya know how they turned out!
Anna says
Based on all the reviews on Epicurious and my experience making these, I'm pretty sure you could get rid of the dairy and eggs pretty easily. For the dairy, just use soy milk (you could sour it with a little lemon juice) or soy yogurt and for the eggs, applesauce or preferably ground flaxseed mixed with water. I think flaxseed/water would better than the applesauce. For the butter, just use oil.
Laura E. says
I would sour a vegan milk with 1 teaspoon vingar or lemon juice and I think using a yogurt or sour cream and applesauce mixture works best for replacing the egg in muffins. 🙂
vanillasugar says
perfect anna! perfect.
LilSis says
These look really, really good. I love the fact that they aren't too sweet because I don't eat much sugar.
I might actually have to break out the pumpkin to make these! It is going to be October tomorrow; maybe I'll get in the mood to bake.
Do you think I could substitute something for the buttermilk and eggs since unfortunately I'm on a "dairy free" diet for now. Applesauce, maybe? I'm terrible at knowing what I can and can't substitute!! 🙁
Lynne says
yum those sound so good! perfect for a sunday brunch!
Lisa W says
What a great photo! You are getting to be as great a photographer as you are baker. Today's and yesterday's are real stand-outs.
Katrina says
The same thing bugs me on Allrecipes. People rate the recipe, then in their review tell about how they changed everything about it.
I'm about to break out the pumpkin. Finally going to be in SLC today and am planning a trip to Whole Foods--they better have whole wheat pastry flour, no one else around here does.
erinsgobragh says
Gosh that looks sooooooo good!
Sue says
This looks like a good way to use up the rest of the can of pumpkin from the pumpkin cheesecake brownies.
I have mixed feelings about people changing the recipes on any site and then rating the recipe after they made changes to it. For the most part I enjoy reading about how other people modify recipes. I guess I only get annoyed when someone changes a recipe and then give it 1 or 2 forks. I figure if they changed it and didn't like it they didn't really give the recipe a chance and they shouldn't drag the rating down.
Amalia says
Interesting, I didn't know that pumpkin spice had all-spice in it, I thought they were two different separate things. Thanks fot the tip! I love th mini chocolate chips on top, that combination is a winner for me.
-Amalia
http://buttersweetmelody.wordpress.com
the blissful baker says
sorry, muffins! not cupcakes :)but delicious nevertheless.
the blissful baker says
yummm i love pumpkin anything. these cupcakes look great!