Pumpkin Muffins To Keep & Give

I love pumpkin and just about anything and everything made with pumpkin.  This recipe is from The Best of fine Cooking Sweet Cakes Holiday Baking Issue.  There are so many great recipes in this issue and I will be trying several, but today I made these delicious muffins.  I thought that these would make great little ‘place cards’ that would also serve as favors for your guests to take home with them.  These fit perfectly into Martha Stewart Crafts goodie boxes from Michael’s.

Pumpkin Muffins

Yields 20 medium muffins

4 large eggs

1 cup sour cream or plain yogurt

3 cups solid-pack pumpkin puree

1 cup packed light brown sugar

1/2 cup granulated sugar

8 oz. {1 cup} unsalted butter, melted

1 1/2 lb. {4 1/2 cups} all-purpose flour

2 tbs. baking powder

1 tsp. baking soda

1 tsp. table salt

3 tbs. ground cinnamon

3 tbs. ground ginger

pinch of cloves

1 1/2 cups golden raisins

Position a rack in the middle of the oven and heat the oven to 350° F.  Gently fold in the raisins.  Grease and flour a muffin tin {or line it with muffin papers, preferably foil}.

In a large bowl, whisk the eggs, sour cream or yogurt, pumpkin puree, brown sugar, sugar, and butter.  In another bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger and cloves {I used pumpkin spice which includes nutmeg}. Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet, stirring until just mixed.  Scoop about 1/2 cup batter into each tin so that the curve of the batter is even with the rim of the cup.  {Refrigerate any extra batter in an airtight container for up to a week.}

Bake the muffins until firm to the touch and a toothpick inserted into them comes out clean, 30 to 35 minutes.  Remove the muffins from the tin when they are cool enough to handle.

Instead of the golden raisins I used 1 cup of regular raisins and 1 cup of milk chocolate chips.

muffiny hugs, mb