Pumpkin Spice Muffins
Updated: Oct 6, 2020
Servings: 12-14
Storage Life of Ingredients: 1 year
Oh, how I love pumpkin! And, oh, how I love muffins! And, oh, how I love crumb topping!? These muffins are a combo of all that makes fall a fun time of year to eat...and eat and eat. A tender crumb, lots of pumpkin and spice flavor, and a delicious sweet topping.
Pictured Process
Preheat oven to 375. Spray muffin tin or liners with baking spray. I own several muffin tins, but my absolute favorite muffin tin is this one from USA. It bakes evenly and the muffins come out so easily! What did I ever do before I owned this tin?! Oh, right, I always used baking liners. I still do if I'm going to share these muffins or take them somewhere, but it's nice not to have to use them if I don't want to. Cleaning is a cinch with this pan too. Eventually, I'm going to replace my other muffin tins with the USA tin. It's that fabulous.
Topping: Combine dry ingredients in a bowl and stir. Add butter and mix until evenly moist and the mixture resembles wet sand. I also prepared muffins using food storage ingredients. I tried making the topping with canola oil instead of butter. Did it work? Yeah, kind of. I found though that the liquid amount for the oil needed to be drastically changed. It was so soupy when I used a 1:1 exchange. At a 1:2 oil to butter ratio, the mixture looked a lot better.
Butter 1:1 Ratio Oil Butter 1:2 Ratio Oil
Muffins: Whisk dry ingredients. In separate bowl, whisk wet ingredients. Stir flour mix into pumpkin mixture until just combined.
For the muffin recipe, I substituted canola oil, extra pumpkin, powdered milk and egg replacer for some of the less easily stored ingredients. You can find Bob's Red Mill egg replacer at your local grocery store. It's gluten free and uses a lot of the ingredients typically found in gluten free recipes. Plus, it's quite cheap compared to crystallized eggs, which is a must have for some recipes, but usually not for baked goods. With these alterations, I now use only ingredients that can easily be stored for 1 year. You'll notice the amount of pumpkin changes when replacing the butter with canola oil. I didn't want as much oil as there was butter, so I substituted 4 Tbsp oil and 4 Tbsp pumpkin for the 8 Tbsp melted butter. This was a change I wouldn't mind doing on a regular basis. I used up more of my leftover pumpkin and less fat! And I couldn't taste a difference in texture or flavor.
Whisk dry ingredients. Egg replacer with water
Whisk wet ingredients. Fold wet ingredients into dry.
Portion 1/3 c batter into each muffin cup. Sprinkle topping evenly over batter to cover the tops of the cupcakes, which should be around 1 Tbsp per muffin.
Ladle 1/3 c batter into each muffin cup Sprinkle topping on batter.
Bake for 22-25 minutes.
Now for the taste test. No difference in the muffin! It was still light and tender with full pumpkin and spice flavor. I did taste the difference in the topping, however. While the oil version works, it had a little bit of an aftertaste. It wasn't horrible, but if at all possible, I would use the butter version of the topping. I also tried doing half oil and half the butter to see if I could cut down on the butter used, but found that the aftertaste was still noticeable. So....my recommendation is to replace the butter in the muffin, but leave it in for the topping! (This is, after all, why we freeze butter for food storage anyway, right?)
Now watch the muffins disappear.
This is what my pan looked like after I gently lifted the muffins out. No scraping with a knife. No scrubbing to clean it off either. I LOVE this muffin tin!
Storage Tips
Flour: All-purpose flour can be stored in 5 gallon food-grade buckets with resealable lids. Layer the flour with bay leaves to keep the weevils away. Grains will keep for at least a year using this method.
Sugar: I store my sugar in 5 gallon food-grade buckets with resealable lids. Sugar is best if used within 2 years.
Pumpkin Pie Spice: Pumpkin pie spice has a shelf life of 2-3 years.
Butter: Store butter in the freezer for a 1 year shelf life.
Baking Powder: Baking powder has a shelf life of 1 year. Check the "best by" date on the container.
Salt: Table salt has a shelf life of 5 years.
Canned Pumpkin: Most canned goods have a shelf life of 2 years. Check the "best by" date on the container.
Eggs: Red Mill egg replacer has a shelf life of 2 years. Check the "best by" date on the package.
Nonfat Dehydrated Milk: Once you open a can of dehydrated milk, it will last a month on your pantry shelf. I repackage it into a freezer bag, label with directions for reconstituting, and store it in my freezer. This way it will las as long as I have electricity to run my freezer. If the power goes out, I can make the powder into milk and easily use it up in a month's time.
Vanilla: Vanilla has a shelf life of almost 4 years. Check the "best by" date on the container.
