Gluten Free Pumpkin Muffins

Boy did these babies take some serious work!  I cannot tell you how many muffins I made until I got this recipe right.  I’ve pretty much been banned from making any more in this house for the next year!  However, I will say it was worth it.  They are moist, deliciously tastey, and are perfect with cup of coffee.

These can be made with sugar pumpkins, but into my third batch I won an HUGE 13 pound Musque de Provence or Cinderella “Fairytale” Pumpkin as they can be called, at the January Kupu Maui event.  These are the sweetest pumpkins you can find.  I made a huge batch of muffins, my curry pumpkin soup, gave two freezer sized bags full of pumpkin meat away and still have three in the freezer.  This baby was huge and the pictures below do NOT do it justice.

Gluten Free Pumpkin Muffins

• 1 cup steamed and mashed pumpkin
• 1 1/2 cups all purpose gluten free flour
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1 1/2 cups of sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp of pumpkin spice
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 2 large eggs whipped
• 1/2 unsalted butter
• 1 cup pecans

1.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2.  In a food processor, blend all dry ingredients.

3.  In a separate bowl mix the wet ingredients by hand and then add to the food processor as well, pulsing the mixture until it’s relatively blended and then run it on mix for about 30 seconds

4.  Add the Pecan halves and pulse a few times to mix, but not break them up to much.

5.  Line your cupcake pan with cupcake papers.  I like to do this because it makes handling the muffins easier and less messy later, but also to prevent any sticking to the pan.

6.  Carefully pour in mixture but only about 3/4 of the way full.  I made the mistake of filling the cups to just about full and my muffin tops were a bit out of control.  See test kitchen disaster image down below!

7.  Bake muffins for 20 minutes checking around minute 15 to make sure they are close to done.  I’m finding that all ovens are different and checking things towards the end, makes sense.

Batch should make about 15 regular sized muffins.