Pumpkin muffins

Mr. K's grandparents live outside of Zürich on a couple acres of farmland in the middle of a small Swiss city. In the back, there are apple and walnut trees; in their driveway, they have a low-walled garden full of sunflowers, cherry tomatoes, and pumpkins. As we were leaving after a visit a few weeks ago, Mama handed me a pumpkin.

We got home and the pumpkin sat in our kitchen. For days. Finally, I looked up a recipe for making pumpkin puree, which involves roasting and scraping and draining and turning everything in your kitchen a kind of light orange. I made puree out of 2/3rds of the pumpkin; the rest became a pumpkin soup for our pre-yom kippur meal, and a pumpkin risotto with the last of our parmesan. And now the question became, what do I do with this puree?

I've been on kind of a cupcake kick lately, but Mr. K's family has complained mentioned that the frosted cupcakes are too sweet. So I made pumpkin muffins based on this recipe from Sally's Baking Addiction, with minimal adjustments (no pumpkin spice here! No second cupcake sheet!).



Ingredients:

1 and 3/4 cups (220 grams) all-purpose flour (Sally warns us not to overmeasure-- I used my digital scale)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1/2 cup (100 grams) dark brown sugar
2 large eggs
1 cup (227 grams) pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie filling)
1/2 cup (120 ml) vegetable oil
1/3 cup (80 ml) milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions:
In a medium bowl, whisk the brown sugar and eggs together until combined. Add the pumpkin, oil, milk, and vanilla until combined. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Do NOT overmix the batter.

Preheat oven to 350F (175C) degrees. I used my silicon cupcake sheet, so no need to spray or butter anything, but if you have a metal one, either use liners or spray carefully.

In a large bowl, whisk the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon together until combined. Set aside.

Spoon the batter evenly into 12 cups. Bake for 17-18 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.