Muffins for the Little Muffin

Well, it has been awhile friends. And although I have been baking (I'm actually baking as I type, such a multi-tasker) I haven't been blogging. So get ready.

A few weeks ago...aw hell, months now. My good friend and colleague Stevie (Death Claw) had a beautiful baby girl, Avery. Let's take a moment to adore this little girl for a minute.

She is fabulous and sweet and just too stinking cute. This Little Muffin deserves some Little Muffins. Done - and since it is Fall it is only fitting to make something with Pumpkins for this Little Pumpkin.

I should mention that I tend to refer to babies as food - pumpkin, muffin, potato, tater tot, hot dog...no, not hot dog but you get the point.

So I found a great recipe from The Pioneer Women for pumpkin muffins and since I'm super fancy I decided to throw some crazins in the mix. Yum.

Ingredients:

• Muffin Mix
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 teaspoons baking powder
• 1 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoons ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoons salt
• 4 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces
• 1 cup (heaping) pumpkin puree (I just use the whole can, 16 oz)
• 1/2 cup evaporated milk (that's about 2/3 of a can, annoyed? You should be.)
• 1 egg
• 1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla
• 1/2 cups crazins
• Topping
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• Frosting
• F-that noise. Buy a jar of vanilla or cream cheese icing. You've done enough. :)

Directions:

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees and grease your muffin pans. Trust me, you do not want to use paper wrappers. I got to make this recipe twice because I used paper wrappers the first time and the muffin totally stuck to the paper and made a disastrous mess. So. Lesson learned there.

Sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and salt into a bowl.

Cut butter into chunks with a knife or pastry cutter until it is fully mixed. In a separate bowl, mix together pumpkin, evaporated milk, egg and vanilla. Pour in that mess into the flour mix. Add crazins...because they are crrraaazzzzy. Stir/mix it up.

Pour mix into muffin pan. Now, I don't have the steadiest hand so I have found that if you pour batter into a sandwich bag or a piping bag to get it in the cups without having a mess on the edges of the pan...and who likes to scrape pans? Not this lady.

Now this photo was taken when I was using the cursed paper liners but imagine they weren't there. Also, I know how yummy these muffins are, please don't be grossed out by how that looks...because I'm realizing that right now. haha Ew.

So, once the batter is in all the cups (recipe usually makes 12 - 18 muffins) sprinkly the topping mix on the raw batter. Now bake for 20 - 25 minutes.

Take 'em out when they are done, let them cool enough and scoop them out with a spoon. I got to use my sweet new piping bags and tip as well for the frosting. I don't like a lot of frosting so here they are.



Yummmmmmm. Hopefully Little Pumpkin Muffin's Mama and Daddy enjoyed these as much (if not more) than her wonderful arrival.

Yum,

Laura