Oatmeal Pumpkin Muffins

Growing up, I was not a huge fan of pumpkin, and I still look askance at the gelatinous goop that comes out of cans, but I stumbled across a recipe for pumpkin puree and it looked so good that I bought a sugar pumpkin and gave it a shot. It was super easy and the puree is this bright, beautiful orange color that calls to me. Everything I put it into turns out tasting like autumn, including these muffins. The original recipe was from allrecipes.com.

1/2 cup canola oil

1/2 cup oatmeal

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup raw sugar

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/2 tsp nutmeg

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

2 eggs

1 cup pumpkin puree

Mix the canola oil and the oatmeal together and let it sit for 5-10 minutes while you do the next steps. In another bowl, thoroughly mix all the dry ingredients together. Add the eggs, pumpkin puree, and oil/oatmeal mixture. FOLD the ingredients together JUST until mixed. Spray oil into the muffin cups and then flour the cups as well....or use cupcake liners. Fill the muffin cups with batter to 1/4 inch below the top, then bake in a 350 oven for 18 minutes.

The original recipe called for raisins and walnuts, but I don't like those, so I left them out. It also called for 1/2 cup of honey instead of sugar, but I was out of that, so I used sugar instead. It seemed like a lot of sugar, so I cut the sugar in half and the muffins were still plenty sweet, in my opinion. I would also have preferred to use applesauce in place of the oil, but I was out of that too. (Thank goodness payday is tomorrow!)

Rating - 5/5
Why? Pumpkin and spice and everything nice, that's what these muffins are made of.