Pumpkin Muffin

I go through cooking phases. The most recent one being cookies of course, but a while back I went through a muffin phase. I would bake a batch of muffins at least twice a week. If you flipped through my tattered, stain covered, spiral-bound cooking notebook, you may stumble upon the page that still has about 10 or 15 muffin flavors scribbled everywhere waiting to be baked. But as suddenly as this phase started, it stopped, and many muffins were sadly forgotten. Bettina is in town for winter break and we spent the day yesterday cooking and baking together. She wanted us to make muffins, due to the absence of muffins on the blog lately, and something with pumpkin, so naturally, we made pumpkin muffins (which happens to be one of the forgotten flavors on the list). These muffins are very light and so moist - not too sweet, not too pumpkiny, and not too spicy (you can definitely boost the amount of spices in the recipe if you want), overall a great muffin to start off your morning.

If you have leftover canned pumpkin from the holidays, this is a good way to use it up. Conversely, if you have leftover pumpkin from this recipe, you can store it in the freezer for another day.

Pumpkin Muffins

2 C AP flour
1 Tbsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1/8 tsp ground ginger
1/8 tsp ground nutmeg
1 egg
1/2 C packed brown sugar
1 C sour cream
4 Tbsp (half stick) butter, melted and cooled
3/4 C unsweetened, unspiced canned pumpkin puree

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Spray a muffin pan with nonstick spray or fill the tins with paper liners.

In a bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt. In another bowl, whisk together the egg and sugar first to break up the egg. Then add in the sour cream, melted butter, and pumpkin puree and whisk until smooth.

Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and fold until the mixture is evenly mixed, a few streaks of flour is okay but do not overmix.

Bake at 375 degrees F until a toothpick inserted in the middle of a muffin in the center of the pan comes out clean, about 20 - 25 mintues.