Perfectly Cozy Pumpkin Muffins

Today’s offering is meant for your lazy weekend.  A weekend that I hope includes a whole pot of coffee, slippers with fur inside, and at least one episode of Love is Blind season 3 (are you on this madness because we really need to talk about it).   This pumpkin muffins recipe makes for tender, sweet, and bouncy muffins. The bounce is what makes a muffin CAKE and that’s all I see sidled up to our coffee this weekend.

Oh there is one caveat.  One promise I need you to make.  Serve these muffins with an alarming amount of softened cream cheese. It’s somehow even better than butter on these muffins. Please forgive me for keeping this simple muffin recipe from you for all these years. I somehow felt it was too simple but… I very much want to make these simple days. Happy weekend, friends!

Here’s what you’ll need to make this cozy pumpkin muffins recipe:

•  all-purpose flour

•  brown sugar and granulated sugar

•  baking powder, baking soda, and kosher salt

•  a neutral oil (I like sunflower, grape seed, and avocado oil)

•  unsalted butter, melted to browned

•  spices: ground cinnamon, ground coriander, ground nutmeg

•  vanilla extract

•  one large egg

•  canned pumpkin puree, though you can use fresh pumpkin puree if you have it!

•  sour cream, my favorite dairy in baking

This pumpkin muffins recipe is mean to to be relaxed as in… you should absolutely be wearing slippers as you bake these.

In a large bowl whisk together the wet ingredients.  We’re talking sugars, oil and melted butter, sour cream, egg, vanilla and the pumpkin puree whipped into a thick emulsion.

I like to use both butter and oil in these muffins.  The butter adds a toasty rich flavor while the oil keeps the muffin tender and bouncy, giving it a longer shelf life. 

In a separate medium bowl, let’s mix together the dry ingredients.  Flour, leavening, salt and spices.  I snuck coriander into these muffins like the blueberry muffins we made this summer. It’s such a warm and bright spice that invigorates base pumpkin flavors.

If you don’t have all of the separate spice ingredients- no sweat. Just use a heaping teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice.

Stir the flour mixture into the wet ingredients and stir into a thick batter.  It’s as easy as that.  And if you have half a bag of chocolate chips or chopped walnuts stashed somewhere on the baking, now is a good time to toss em in!

The key to making these muffins tall and craggily – cover the muffin batter and chill for an hour (or overnight). The chill time will allow the starch to absorb the moisture and the batter to thicken creating a sturdy but still tender muffin.  If you need muffins on the quick, you can skip this step and the muffins will still be fantastic!

Grab a muffin pan with paper liners or a rimmed sheet pan with these muffin baking cups that stand on their own.  I love the later option because the paper doesn’t show grease spots and the straight sides bake for super tall muffins.

Before the muffins go in the oven, sprinkle very generously with turbinado sugar. I love the shimmery crunch it adds to the top of the muffin. This of this sugar in place of a crumb topping for a crisp, sweet muffin top.

To test the doneness of the muffins, make sure the tops appear evenly risen and dry and insert a toothpick into the center of a muffin.  If it comes out clean or with a few crumbs, your muffins are done!

Allow the muffins to cool just slightly on a wire rack before serving warm with big pats of cream cheese or salted butter.  I’ll tell ya, cream cheese is the way to go here.

Cake! You can’t tell me this isn’t the perfect cake bite.

Leave any questions or comments on this pumpkin muffins recipe below! I want to hear how you enjoy them! xo

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