Pumpkin Muffins

After the insanity that was my Thanksgiving baking, I found myself tired, but my family hungry; we get so used to having the party here and having lots of leftovers, so it felt weird to have nothing!  Luckily I did happen to have a pretty big container of homemade pumpkin puree left over, and in fact, be prepared for a mountain of pumpkin recipes coming your way.  I had roasted 2 rather large sugar pumpkins, and even after my caramel-spiked pumpkin pie, I had lots of pumpkin to use.  We decided we felt like muffins, so I decided to try some good old fashioned pumpkin muffins from Smitten Kitchen.

I had made pumpkin muffins before: stuffed with cream cheese and pumpkin donut muffins.  But this time around I decided to just go with a simple pumpkin muffin, and thus we have these.

I was intrigued by the recipe, which claimed that these muffins are still "excellent" on the second day.    I have made enough muffins in my day to have a hard time believing that... but I can tell you that it's not a lie!  These pumpkins were really good right out of the oven, but my family continued to eat them for days.  Even my mom ate a few of them, and she claims to hate pumpkin.  So if you need a simple, easy, delicious pumpkin muffin that will taste good the next day, here you go.

Recipe:

pumpkin muffins
from Smitten Kitchen 
makes 12 muffins

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon table salt
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (or 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon + 1/4 teaspoon fresh nutmeg + 1/4 teaspoon ginger + pinch of ground cloves and allspice)
1 cup to 1 1/3 cup (more makes it richer) pumpkin puree
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 1/4 cups plus 1 tablespoon granulated sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Instructions:

1) Heat oven to 350 degrees.  Put liners in 12 standard-sized muffin cups.

2) Stir or whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spice in a small or medium bowl.

3) In a larger bowl, whisk together pumpkin, oil, eggs, and 1 1/4 cups sugar.  Add dry ingredients to wet and stir until just combined.  Divide batter among muffin cups (each about 3/4 full).

4) Stir together last tablespoon of sugar and teaspoon of cinnamon.  Sprinkle over each muffin.

5) Bake until puffed and golden brown and wooden pick or skewer inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes.

6) Cool in pan on rack 5 minutes, then transfer muffins from pan to rack and cool to warm or room temperature.