November 19, 2012

Bake Sale Muffins

No, we haven't disappeared!  Although we've continued cooking together and on our own on and off throughout the year, we've had a bit of a hiatus due to our inability to coordinate our schedules.  You know, life and all of that. 

We plan to be back in full force this year though, and to start us off I have a recipe for "Pumpkin Surprise Muffins" or what I call Bake Sale Muffins, because they've proved to be a bake sale hit three years in a row.  Recipe is courtesy of Taste of Home

Ingredients

  • 2 cups all-purpose flour
  • 1/2 cup plus 3 tablespoons sugar, divided
  • 3 teaspoons baking powder
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 2 eggs
  • 1 cup canned pumpkin
  • 1/2 cup sour cream
  • 6 tablespoons butter, melted
  • 6 tablespoons apricot preserves, divided
  • 1 package (3 ounces) cream cheese, cut into 12 cubes
  • 1/4 cup sliced almonds

Directions

  • In a small bowl, combine the flour, 1/2 cup sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg and ginger. In another bowl, beat the eggs, pumpkin, sour cream, butter and 3 tablespoons preserves. Stir into the dry ingredients just until moistened.
  • Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups half full. Place a cream cheese cube and 3/4 teaspoon of preserves in each. Top with remaining batter. Sprinkle with almonds and remaining sugar. Bake at 400° for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack. Refrigerate leftovers. Yield: 1 dozen.
 
 
I followed the recipe basically as written, except that I doubled everything so that we could have half to sell and half to keep.  I just greased the pans without using muffin cups and they turned out great.  Didn't have almonds but I sprinkled them with the coarse sugar crystals which I think turned out nicely.  









Stay tuned for a menu of Thanksgiving sides that we'll be doing this year.