Pumpkin Oatmeal Muffins

I can’t resist the giant crates of sugar pumpkins / pie pumpkins at the farmers markets and outside my local grocery store. I don’t like pumpkin pie, but still find myself roasting at least a couple. There’s something about the process of harvesting and preserving that’s almost instinctive.

I created this recipe as a way to do something with all the pumpkin I was preserving 🙂 They’re dense and hearty with all the right spices for the season.

Tip: Put all the dry ingredients in the food processor before you go to bed (if it’s humid you may want to wait on the brown sugar). When you get up in the morning, you can have muffins in the oven and ready to enjoy with your morning coffee. I can’t risk measuring out the spices before I’m really awake, so best to get that part done the night before!

Note: the proportions in this recipe assume you’re using fresh pumpkin. Canned pumpkin is wetter, be prepared to adjust with more dry or less pumpkin if you go that route.

• 1 ½ cup cooked pumpkin
• 2 eggs at room temperature
• 2 tbsp oil (any kind)
•  3/4 tsp of each cinnamon, salt and baking soda
• 1/4 tsp of each dried ginger, nutmeg and cloves
• 3/4 cup brown sugar (I use demerrara but any brown sugar is fine)
• 3/4 cups large flake oats
• 3/4 cup all purpose flour

Preheat the oven to 350 F for dark muffin pans.

Put all the dry ingredients in a food processor and whir until blended. Add the eggs, oil and pumpkin and whir until just blended. You could use a mixer instead, but I don’t like to risk any chunks of fresh pumpkin, and the oats are nice broken up a bit.

Spoon into the muffin tin (I use parchment paper liners rather than oiling the pan), it should make 12 good sized muffins. They won’t expand so you can fill each cup almost full. Bake for 25 – 28 minutes, checking with a toothpick near the end to be sure they’re cooked through (like I said, they’re dense!).