who's hungry?

We're going to be making Pumpkin Muffins.

Because they're good.

Get this stuff out, preheat your oven and start baking. The flour and sugar are in the green canisters in the back, fyi. And I add chocolate to them because I'm an addict.

Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk them together.

See. That was easy.

Beat the butter in the mixer until soft.

Dump in the two sugars.

Beat the butter and sugars until light and fluffy.

I forgot these in the first picture. You'll need to add these next. How do you like my jumbo size bottle of Mexican vanilla? Courtesy of Aaron's uncle Kent. Everybody needs an uncle Kent.

Add the eggs one by one and mix for one full minute after adding the last egg.

Add vanilla.

And buttermilk. 

This is when you add the pureed pumpkin and plop some on the counter next to where you spilled some vanilla.

Slowly add the bowl of dry ingredients until just combined. You don't want to over mix the batter or else you'll end up with tough muffins. And nobody likes tough muffins. 

This is where I usually stop when it's "just combined".

Toss in the chopped pecans, raisins, and chocolate.

Stir by hand until it looks like this:

Then take your handy scoop thing and plop one and half of these into your muffin tins.

They'll be this full.

Bake the muffins for 25 minutes in a 350 degree oven. While they're baking, clean up the mess you've made.

Your kids will come home from and want to know what's cooking because it'll smell so good in your house. And then when you tell them the muffins have nuts and raisins in them, they'll turn around and walk out of the kitchen complaining that you always put nuts in things and maybe just once you'll make something without nuts. Hypothetically.

These are really good right out of the oven.

And they are also really good the next morning.

Warm one up in the microwave and slather some butter on and bite into the muffin with the pumpkin and nuts and raisins and chocolate. It's Fall all wrapped up in one tasty package. 

Pumpkin Muffins

adapted from Dorie Greenspan

Ingredients:

4 cups all-purpose flour

4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/4 salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/8 tsp allspice

2 sticks of salted butter, room temperature

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar

4 large eggs

1 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 1/2 cups canned unsweetened pumpkin puree

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 cup moist, plump golden raisins

1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts

1 cup chopped chocolate or chocolate chips

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400'F. Butter or line muffin tins.

Whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices.

In the mixing beat butter on medium speed until soft. Add sugars and cream until light. Add eggs one at a time, beating for one full minute after the last one to fully incorporate. Beat in vanilla and buttermilk, scrape down bowl. With the mixer on low, add the pumpkin. Still on low, add the dry ingredients in a steady stream, mixing until just incorporated. Mix in any last bits of flour with a spatula. Stir in raisins, nuts and chocolate. Batter will be thick. Divide evenly into muffin cups.

Bake for 25 minutes, until a thin knife inserted into muffins comes out clean. Transfer pan to a rack to and cool for 5 minutes, then remove from molds and set on rack until completely cool.

*These are best eaten the day they are made, but they can be wrapped tightly and stored in the freezer up to two months.