Bring on the seasonal baking!

I'm really getting into the swing of things now. Bring on the pumpkin! Bring on the apple! Although, the two 1/2 bushels sitting in my classroom might be a bit too many apples, but that's another story. Anyways, my light english muffin/laughing cow cheese breakfast combo wasn't doing it for me this week. I tend to fall into food ruts - I'll eat the same thing (particularly for weekday breakfasts) until I get totally sick of it. Then I'll revert to a previous favorite, eat it daily until sick of it, and so on. So, I decided to make some muffins and retire the english muffin and laughing cow cheese combo for a while.

This recipe sounded intriguing. Between the whole wheat flour and the entire can of pumpkin - it sounded kind of healthy. Of course I threw in some chocolate chips to take care of that! :) These were delicious - quite ugly-looking if truth be told, but if you like pumpkin you'll enjoy the taste at least. They're dense, but chewy and held me over until lunch time quite nicely.

Emily's Pumpkin Spice Muffins

My notes - I found this recipe on the Cooking Light community board. I don't know who Emily is, but her muffins were delicious! And again, I made as written using a whole can of pumpkin and throwing in about a third of a cup of chocolate chips. Also, if you're vain about how your muffins appear then I suggest smoothing over the tops of the batter once in the pan. I didn't, and as you can see from the picture, the way they went in is the way they came out. This was a very dense batter.

Serving Size : 12

1/4 cup butter -- softened
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup low fat sour cream
1/4 cup 2% milk (normally I'd use skim -- but I've got 2% right now)
1 2/3 cup pureed pumpkin
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla
3/4 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp cloves - heaping
1 tsp cinnamon - heaping
1 cup all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt

Preheat over to 350 degrees.

Cream butter and sugars. Add the sour cream and next 7 ingredients (milk
through cinnamon) beat well.

Stir together flours, baking soda and salt in a small bowl. Add to wet
mixture and beat until combined.

Pour batter into muffin tin sprayed with cooking spray. Bake until a
toothpick tests clean - about 35 minutes.