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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Perfectly Cozy Pumpkin Muffins
- Prep Time: 1 hour 20 minutes
- Cook Time: 12-15 minutes
- Total Time: 1 hour 35 minutes
- Yield: 12 muffins 1x
- Category: breakfast, brunch
- Method: baking
Description
A rather perfect pumpkin muffin. Tender, sweet. and spiced. The perfect weekend treat. (And they freeze well and toast up perfectly in the oven!)
Ingredients
- 1 3/4 cup (218 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon kosher salt
- 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground coriander
- 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) granulated sugar
- 1/2 cup (100 grams) lightly packed brown sugar
- 6 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted to browned
- 1/3 cup (75 grams) vegetable oil (or any neutral oil)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 large egg
- 1/4 cup (61 grams) sour cream
- 15 ounce can pumpkin puree
- Turbinado sugar for topping
Instructions
- In a medium bowl whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, and spices. Set aside.
- In a large bowl whisk together sugars, melted butter, oil, vanilla, the egg, and sour cream until well combined. Whisk in the pumpkin puree.
- Add the dry ingredients all at once to the wet ingredients and use a rubber spatula to fold the ingredients together. The batter will be thick. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and allow to rest in the refrigerator for 1 hour. This will create a muffin with a lofty top.
- Thirty minutes before baking, place a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat oven to 400°F. Line a muffin tin with paper liners or lightly grease each muffin cup. Fill each muffin cup about 2/3 or 3/4 of the way full. Sprinkle each muffin generously with turbinado sugar (about 2 teaspoons each). Bake for 12 to 15 minutes until puffed and golden and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs.
- Allow the muffins to cool for a few moments in the pan before removing to a wire rack. Serve warm or at room temperature. Store any leftover muffins well wrapped at room temperature for up to 4 days.
29 Responses
I made approx 1 dozen. I do like how the rise tall is the paper cups. The flavor is delicious. I’m not fond of muffins or pumpkin. I tried it because of the coriander . Also, if anyone could add flavor to the pumpkin and perfect the texture of a cake- it would be Joy. I baked 5 after a one-hour chill. Delicious!. Baked six after 1.5 day chill. Cooked about 20 minutes. Supermoist. Maybe a little STICKY, but not gummy. I ate yhe other third of the batter after adding browned butter. The butter and spices have an incredible aroma. Batter smelled and tasted so good that I may just do some sort of custard next time
Can this be made as 2 loafs? Any idea how the bake time would change?
Joy, can I substitute King Arthur’s 1:1 GF flour? I love all your recipes ? mabstokes
Yes, you sure can!
Easy and delicious recipe!
I’ve made these several times now as written, and each time they’ve turned out excellent. I never plan far enough ahead for the 1 hour chill, but I do scoop the batter into my muffin tin and chill the tray while the oven finishes preheating. They still have a really nice rise! I don’t always get that here in Colorado. I also love that this recipe comes together quickly with ingredients I usually have on hand! Thanks, Joy!
These were perfect for a “teachersgiving” potluck at school! Made them as listed with the chocolate chips! One batch made 12 regular sized and 12 mini muffins. Turbinado was such a nice crunchy addition. Cooked them for longer than listed, about 19min at 400 for the full sized and 15 for the minis.
I scooped and baked these straight from the fridge – having followed the recipe exactly. They rose minimally and took over 20 minutes to bake. Should have let the batter come to room temperature before baking? The flavour was excellent.
These were so delicious! Moist, seasonal, and perfect! Thank you for sharing :)
PS, did Karlee @ Olive & Artisan take these photos? She has such a distinctive style and I’m getting major O&A vibes from these lovely shots!
It’s the best way to give your kids some pumpkin! It is a beautiful recipe..
I came for the coriander. Hadn’t seen that in a pumpkin/baking recipe before. Searched my house for my baking soda. Remembered I’d used it all on the drains. Wanted to make this so badly I went out to the grocery store at -18 to get more baking soda. These muffins were worth it. To be fair, I did some subs—posting here for the curious—as always I used whole wheat pastry flour and a little of a ground seed blend for the flour. I used swerve for the white sugar since I have some that someone gave me and regular brown sugar for the brown. As always, I doubled the spices. For the topping, I’m out of hemp seeds, my usual muffin topping, so I made a new muffin top blend of coconut, poppyseeds, black sesame seeds, and coriander seeds my dad harvested. I used a jumbo muffin tin for the first time and it took them about 30 minutes to bake. Amazing. And I ate just one and packed up the rest.
Were those substitutions 1 :1? Willing to share the ratio of topping ingredients
I d like your recipe
These are delicious!! I made them dairy free (vegan Kite Hill sour cream and earth balance vegan butter) and used whole wheat flour. Sooooooo good!!
?? Absolutely delicious! Loving the addition of coriander.
made these today and they were AMAZING. i’m lazy/impatient and did not give them time to sit and they still turned out really good. I did have to, weirdly, almost double the bake time? but that could have just been a weather/oven thing. will def be making them again though!
Will the muffins turn out if I don’t let them rest that long or if I let them rest for a full overnight? I’m trying to picture making this for breakfast and the waiting time makes it a bit tricky. Thanks! :)
I didn’t wait for mine to sit for any longer than i took me to find my muffin tin/put the papers in and they came out amazing!
Yummmm! I wasn’t sure how these would come out using coriander instead of the usual pumpkin spice mix but wow, so gorgeous. I swapped the sugar topping for pumpkin seeds.
Thank you for this fabulous sounding recipe. I’ve been making Pumpkin BREAD/CAKE FOR ABOUT 20 YEARS FOR FAMILY AND FRIENDS (HALLOWEEN PARTIES) …(DON’T sprinkle flax seeds on top as my recipe called for! A company President thought they were Marijuana and I was mortified ??LOLLLLL CANT WAIT TO TRY YOURS.
These are delicious! They will be made on repeat til Thanksgiving! Now you’re a part-time Texan please come to Austin and we’ll visit some bakeries!
Would be hard to beat your vegan pumpkin bread recipe which is a fan favorite around here! Going to give these a try. Wondering if I can get by with full-fat Greek yogurt or the trip to the store for sour cream will be worth it?
thank you, my kind of weekend muffins! Pumpkin’s a nice addition too, not sick of anything pumpkin yet, I can keep going through November!
The muffins look scrumptious! I’ve had a go to pumpkin muffin recipe for 20 years but this might be my new favorite! I’ll let you know… Have a spooky and relaxing weekend!
automatically a fan of any recipe that makes use of the whole can of pumpkin ??? can’t wait to try these!
The muffins look yummy. My grandmother had the blue dish pattern you’re showing. Major nostalgia. :-)
Yessss a pumpkin recipe that uses the entire can of pumpkin! You always got us covered, Joy! Thanks!! I just got your signed magazine in the mail and so excited to try recipes from it! Happy Autumn to you!
This looks so delicious ? thank you for pumpkin muffins and even better almost all the ingredients are in the pantry!!!
Thanks for the pumpkin spice shortcut. I can do this one!