TWD: Pumpkin Muffins

There are two kinds of people in this world: cupcake people and muffin people. I happen to be a cupcake girl. It's not that I don't like muffins, because I do. I just like cupcakes more. Some might say cupcakes.....muffins....., they're pretty much the same thing, except that you can get away with eating muffins for breakfast. Not true. Just ask my friend Cakespy, who wrote a very informative and (ahem) scientific treatise on the subject a while back. I won't go into the details of her findings, but suffice it to say, there are significant differences between the two.

With this in mind, let's move on to this week's Tuesdays with Dorie assignment: Pumpkin Muffins. When I first learned of this recipe choice, I was kind of excited. Fresh, hot muffins laced with pumpkin, raisins, nuts and cinnamon sounded like the perfect thing to have with my coffee on a crisp, cool Autumn morning. Oh.....Wait.....I live in Florida. We don't have crisp, cool Autumn mornings here. Oh, well. I was still up for it, so I gathered my ingredients and made muffins.

Just to prove what a good sport I am, I even ended up making two batches of pumpkin muffins, so that I would have plenty to share. For the first batch, I stuck to the original recipe, using golden raisins and chopped pecans. For moist, plump and juicy raisins, I soaked them in some apple cider for a few hours.

For the second batch, I mixed it up a little and used dried apples and cranberries with chopped walnuts. Also, since some of my nearest and dearest cannot have cinnamon, I left it out and instead, added a few tablespoons of pure maple syrup to the batter.

The recipe was fairly easy and I didn't run into any problems along the way. As I baked the muffins for the instructed length of time, my house smelled heavenly - just like pumpkin pie! When I removed them from the oven, they looked nice and golden on top too. Unfortunately, when I broke into one and tasted it, it was a little dry and spongy. Not bad, but a little "meh". Certainly, not what I was expecting! I'm not sure what I did wrong. I was very careful not to overwork the batter, but perhaps I did. In any case, while the muffins were tasty, they were just okay for me. Luckily, most of them will be going to work with me today. (Those people will eat anything!)

My thanks go out to Kelly of Sounding My Barbaric Culp for choosing this week's recipe. If you'd like to try these pumpkin muffins for yourself, you can find the recipe in Dorie's book, Baking: From My Home to Yours, or here on Kelly's site. If you'd like to see what the rest of the TWD gang has done with this recipe, visit our blogroll.