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| Pumpkin Muffins with Cream Cheese Icing |
Today I made my version of pumpkin muffins with cream cheese icing. I toasted the seeds into two flavors: sweet and savory. I used the sweet ones as a garnish for the muffins. It added a nice succulent crunch to the moist pumpkin muffins. So delicious!
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| Raw Pumpkin |
To start off I opened and gutted the pumpkins (2 small-medium sized) I got from Ticonderoga Farms. I separated the seeds from the pulp. Then I cut up the pumpkins into large pieces and placed them on cookie sheets, skin side down, and baked them for 2 hours in a 350˚ F oven. After they cooled completely I scraped the pulp from the skin.
The next step was to puree all of the pumpkin insides, in order to use it for cooking. I have enough from the two pumpkins to make about 5 batches of pumpkin bread or muffins, YAY!
All of this prep work was done yesterday, today was the day to actually make the delicious little treats!
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| Pumpkin Puree |
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| Sweet Pumpkin Seed mixture before being baked |
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| Savory flavored Pumpkin Seeds before being baked |
I baked the seeds (recipe below) first so that they would be ready to top the muffins when the time came. While those were baking, I mixed everything together for the muffins (recipe below). Before putting the trays into the oven I topped the batter with some sugar to make them extra sweet.
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| Mixing the batter |
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| Pumpkin seeds nice and toasted...so yummy! |
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| Batter being prepared to be baked |
Then I let the muffins bake halfway (about 9 minutes) and then added some of the sweet pumpkin seeds on top. I did this after they had set a bit so that the seeds wouldn't just sink to the bottom; even though I am sure that would taste delicious as well!
While the muffins were baking I started on the cream cheese icing (my favorite).
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| Finished muffins before the addition of the cream cheese icing |
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| Finished product!! |
Once the muffins cooled a bit I was able to add that beautiful dollop of icing and enjoy one. Let me tell you they were so yummy! I must say making these may be the best thing I have ever done! Well maybe not, but they are definitely in the top ten.
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| Delicious! |
Enjoy & Be Beautiful!
Recipes:
Pumpkin Muffins:
Ingredients:
15 oz. of Pumpkin puree
4 eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
2/3 cup water
3 cups sugar
3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
Preheat oven to 400˚ F. In a large bowl mix together pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, water and sugar. In a separate bowl whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, and ginger. Add dry ingredients gradually to pumpkin mixture until well blended. Pour into muffin tins, sprinkle sugar on top and bake for 18-20 minutes. At 9 minute marker take out quickly and add a few sweet pumpkin seeds to the top of each muffin.
Baking Pumpkin Seeds:
Sweet
Mix 2 tablespoons of butter, some cinnamon, some sugar and some brown sugar in a ziplock bag with the seeds until well blended. Spread on cookie sheet.
Savory
Mix some olive oil, salt, and old bay seasoning in ziplock bag with seeds until well blended. Spread on cookie sheet.
Bake in oven at 400˚ F for 10-20 minutes (about 15 minutes was perfect) or until they begin to brown.
Cream Cheese Icing:
Ingredients:
1 package of cream cheese (3 oz) softened
1 tablespoon of milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
dash of salt
2 1/2 cups of confectioners' sugar
Blend cheese, milk, vanilla and salt. Gradually add sugar , beating until frosting is smooth and of spreading consistency.
Place a dollop or how-ever much you want on top of each muffin.
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