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Happy October! The month of apple picking, flag football, and borderline offensive costume parties. In honor of this glorious month, I wanted to do something with a pumpkin. But I reeeeally didn’t want to buy the canned pumpkin stuff when every market has a plethora of beautiful pumpkins up for the taking. That would be like buying frozen strawberries in May, or canned corn in August, or a bag of ice in Antarctica.
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So I picked up a perfect pumpkin and cradled him back to my apartment. Other than jack-o-lanterns, I had never really worked with a whole pumpkin before. But it’s basically just like squash… cut it in half, take out the seeds, slice off the skin, and cut up the chunks of remaining flesh. Once you’re at this point, you can really do anything with the pumpkin… you can roast the pieces in the oven with salt and pepper for a side dish, you can mash the roasted pieces with butter to make a mashed-potatoes-esque dish… or you can make a puree by boiling the raw pieces in a few cups of water for 20 minutes.
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I knew I wanted a puree for adding to muffin batter, so I went with the stovetop option. For my sized pumpkin (soccer ball sized), about 3 cups of water was perfect for softening down the flesh. Don’t add more water than you need… nobody likes a watery puree! You just want about an inch of water in the pot to keep the pieces from scorching. About 20 minutes later, the pieces were mushy and ready to puree. I let them go in the Cuisinart for about 2 minutes to make sure everything was totally smooth. I had about 8 cups of pumpkin puree after this step. Season it with the ratio of ¼ teaspoon of salt for every cup of pumpkin puree.
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Now you’re ready to make pumpkin pie, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin butter, pumpkin baby food—you can really do anything with this pumpkin puree! I wanted to adapt an Applesauce Muffin recipe from The Fannie Farmer Junior Cookbook, subbing in pumpkin puree for applesauce. So, you know the drill: beat your softened butter until it’s smooth and creamy. Slowly add brown sugar and mix until it’s fluffy. Beat in your egg. Add the baking soda, salt, and “pumpkin pie spice” (I generally avoid those pre-mixed spices, but it’s what I had at home… you can do half cinnamon & half ground ginger if you like!). Then I added some greek yogurt for moisture & texture (they were dry without it!). Then barely mix in your flour. Fold in the pumpkin puree last.
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I baked these in a 350⁰ oven for 18 minutes. They’re done when an inserted toothpick comes out clean. Feel free to adapt this recipe by adding chocolate chips or nuts of your choice! They’re best toasted with butter…
Recipe:
- 1 stick of salted butter, softened
- 1 cup dark brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 ¼ teaspoons baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons “pumpkin pie spice”
- ⅓ cup greek yogurt
- 2 cups flour
- 2 cups deseeded, peeled, chopped, softened and pureed pumpkin flesh
Optional additions:
- 1 cup chocolate chips
- 1 cup chopped walnuts
Makes 12 muffins