Pumpkin Muffins

Oh one of my favorite things about the fall is baking and baking with pumpkin and spices! As my mom and I were shopping the other day she asked me to get her some pumpkin and I thought I'll get some too and find something to make. I looked up pumpkin muffins online and found a recipe for "Addictive" pumpkin muffins" on allrecipes.com. I changed the recipe up a bit to make it more nutritious and more geared toward what I wanted.

Ingredients :

• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 cup whole wheat flour
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 eggs
• 1 small can pumpkin
• 1/3 cup unsweetened applesauce
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• 1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 C). Grease three 12 cup muffin pans, or line with paper muffin liners.
• 2. In a large bowl, combine the two types of flour, two sugars, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, cinnamon, and ground cloves. In a separate bowl, mix the eggs, pumpkin, and applesauce, until smooth. Add this mixture to the dry ingredients and stir thoroughly to make a smooth batter. Spoon batter into the prepared muffin cups.

3. Bake at 350 degrees for 30-35 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.

I served these for breakfast, but if you wanted to serve them as dessert you could easily frost them with the following icing (ahem, making them not so nutritious, but quite yummy)

Cream cheese frosting:

1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese, softened

• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
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• In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the powdered sugar

These are yummy pumpkin muffins with or without frosting!

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