Fall Festival

I organized a "fall festival" at work last week to help improve the moral in our office last week.  (Helped mine a little until I got kicked by the Dumass management team.)

Anyway, I found a super easy recipe to share with you.  The muffins do come out moist even without oil & eggs, they are good for you, and they taste really good (which is the main thing).

Easy Pumpkin Muffins
Makes 18 cupcakes

 Ingredients: 

1 box (18.25 oz) spice cake mix (can substitute yellow, white, carrot, or chocolate cake mix)
1-15oz can of pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)
1/2 cup water

Add-ins: About 1/2 - 1 cup (total) of chocolate chips, nuts, raisins, and/or dried cranberries (optional)

Directions: 

1. Mix first three ingredients in a large bowl until well blended. (Use a mixer – it’s much easier)
2. Stire in the add-ins if used.
3. Place into lined muffins pan and fill a little more than 3/4 of the way full.
4. Sprinkle a little streusal on top of each muffin if desired.
4. Bake at 400 degrees for approximately 20 - 25 minutes.

Streusal Topping (optional)

1/4 cup flour
2 Tablespoons brown sugar
2 Tablespoons butter or margarine
Mix together with fingers or pastry cutter until it looks like coarse crumbs.


Recipe notes:

This is a common receipe on the internet.  I saw some that didn't use the water, but I recommend it.  I saw others recommended applesauce instead of water - I'm going to try that some time.  Some recipes bake the muffins at 350 degrees, others at 400.  I baked mine at 400 and it still took 25 minutes.

I used cranberries in 6 of my muffins, they didn't rise as high but they were good to eat.

Spice cake mix can be hard to find.  If you use a yellow or white cake mix you may want to add the following spices with the cake mix in step one:  

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves

I saw a box of Butter Pecan cake mix that I bet would be an excellent substitute for the spice cake.

These muffins are a little uninteresting on top (some might consider them ugly) so you may want to add a little powdered suger to the tops of the cooled muffins, or powdered sugar mixed with a little cocoa, or a cream cheese icing, but I prefer a streusel topping.  You can add 1/4 tsp cinnamon to the topping recipe if desired and/or 1/4 cup chopped nuts.

I saw some recipes that added oats, or shredded apples, or whatever struck their fancy, so experiment with the recipe if you like.  Bananas were on sale this week so I bought 2 bunches on different days but they all seem to be ripening at the same time.  I wonder if this recipe would work with mashed bananas?