Yummy Pumpkin Muffins

Pumpkin muffins are usually a fall thing, but when Eric told me last night that his office was having a potluck today and he volunteered to bring muffins, it didn't leave us with many options. The recipe calls for pumpkin pie spice, but I was afraid that would make it taste too Thanksgivingy, so I did vanilla instead. The recipe called for 1 cup of pumpkin puree, but the blog I got it from said they accidentally used the whole can and it was fine, so that's what we did.

I got it from http://muffintop.wordpress.com/, who got the recipe from Gourmet magazine.

INGREDIENTS:
1.5 cups all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1 15oz can solid-pack pumpkin

1/3 cup vegetable oil

2 large eggs

1 tsp vanilla
1.25 cups plus 1 Tbsp sugar

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp cinnamon

Equipment: 12 foil or paper muffin liners; a muffin pan with 12 (1/2-cup) muffin cups

DIRECTIONS:
Put oven rack in middle positiona nd preheat oven toe 350F. Put liners in muffin cups.
Whisk together flour and baking powder in a small bowl.
Whisk together pumpkin, oil, eggs, pumpkin-pie spice, 1.25 cups sugar, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl until smooth, then whisk in flour mixture until just combined.
Stir together cinnamon and remaining 1 tablespoon sugar in another bowl.
Divide batter among muffin cups (each should be about 3/4 full).
Bake until puffed and golden brown and a wooden pick or skewer inserted into center of a muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes.
Cool in pan on a rack 5 minutes, then transfer muffins from pan to rack and cool to warm or room temperature.

*We made mini muffins and baked them for 14 minutes.

I love pumpkin muffins, and they weren't too Thanksgivingy at all. They were moist and pumpkiny and not too sweet. I think we may have to make a batch for ourselves now! Mini chocolate chips might not hurt it either...