It’s great when commenters on The Lunch Tray leave a URL for their own blogs or websites; whenever I have time I check out these links just to see what everyone is up to, and I’ve discovered lots of great resources that way.
The other day a reader named Alissa left a link to her blog, The Simply Wholesome Kitchen, and there I stumbled on her recipe for pumpkin muffins. What intrigued me about Alissa’s recipe was that it uses 100% whole wheat pastry flour and no white flour at all (even my healthiest muffin recipes usually use some white flour to avoid a leaden muffin). It also calls for the entire can of pumpkin, so there are no annoying leftovers you have to freeze (or waste). I was a little worried about that, though, because when I’ve put a lot of canned pumpkin in my baked goods my kids sometimes find the result too “squashy” tasting.
Well, I gave the recipe a whirl and was impressed with the results. Due to all the leavening (baking soda, baking powder and yogurt), the muffins were remarkably light and fluffy for a whole wheat baked good, and the pumpkin flavor wasn’t overwhelming. (I should mention that I was out of butter that day – a discovery I only made after I’d mixed up the dry ingredients (doh!) – so I substituted the same amount of organic canola oil. While butter might have been tastier, I didn’t miss it.) My only quibble with the recipe is that it uses less spice than some pumpkin muffins, so the next time I might ramp up the cinnamon and add other warm spices like ginger and nutmeg (or take the lazy route and throw in a lot of “pumpkin pie spice.”) But that’s just a matter of taste, and this recipe is now part of my baking rotation as a healthy breakfast item, an after-school snack, or a lunch box add-in.
You can check Alissa’s blog out here, and be sure to let her know if you like her muffins!
And remember, you can find this and all TLT’s Table recipes using the Recipes tab above.
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Alissa says
So glad you liked these muffins too…they went over really well in my house, but I always have a fear that a recipe that comes out great for me will flop for others:) Also excited to hear they worked well with canola oil – I have been meaning to try that variation!