The Best Pumpkin Muffin Recipe

Hey, I'm John Kanell, and today on Preppy Kitchen, we're making some pillowy soft, perfectly sweet pumpkin muffins. So let's get started. First off, preheat your oven to 425, so it is screaming hot. And now, in a large bowl, we're gonna add one and a half cups of all-purpose flour. That's 180 grams. Your scale is gonna be your best friend here. If you're not using a scale, do not scoop the flour up. Sprinkle it into your measuring cup and level it off. Okay. Perfect. Pumpkin muffins need tons of warming spices, so we're gonna use two and a half teaspoons of pumpkin pie spice. If you wanna make your own, I have that recipe up on the website. You're welcome to take a gander. It's a lovely combination of cinnamon, ginger, cloves, allspice, and nutmeg. I love having a nice, big container of it hanging around, but feel free to use your favorite full spices. It should be about two and a half teaspoons. To puff things up, half a teaspoon of baking powder, and one teaspoon of baking soda. For some contrast, we're using half a teaspoon of salt. The salt will really give you some depth of flavor and help you taste the spices and taste the pumpkin and the brown sugar. Your scale is done. Grab a whisk, and we're gonna mix this up. Get all those spices and leavening agents and salt nicely distributed. Once well-mixed, set this aside and grab another large bowl for the wet ingredients. To sweeten and soften our muffins, we're gonna use half a cup of granulated sugar. That's 100 grams. As well as half a cup of packed light brown sugar. That's 110 grams. Lovely. These muffins will stay soft for days. They're gonna be such good grab-and-go snacks. To make this happen, we're gonna use half a cup of oil. You can use any neutral oil that you prefer. This is vegetable oil. A quarter cup of whole milk. Two large room-temperature eggs for some structure and added richness. And one teaspoon of vanilla. If you wanted to, dark rum would be excellent in this instead of vanilla. Or bourbon. Give this a nice whisk so everything's lovely and combined. And by the way, if you like my videos, hit that subscribe button. There's two new recipes every week. Personally, I don't think pumpkin should be a seasonal ingredient. It is so magical in baked goods. It gives you the softest texture. It has a lovely, very subtle vegetal flavor. Okay. You can hunt and peck around for any boulders of brown sugar. I got them all. For the star ingredient, we're gonna add one and a quarter cups or 280 grams of pumpkin puree. I just love it. It's so good. In fact, at the end of every video, there's a playlists recommendation. This one will have my pumpkin playlist and I highly encourage you to peruse it. There's so many delicious recipes. Whisk this in. We want it nice and smooth. And you can see this recipe only takes a few minutes to make. It's so easy. My boys Lachlan and George love making muffins. It's one of the things they can have for a snack they can put in their backpack or have for an afternoon snack after school. It helps these muffins last for three days at room temperature, a week in the fridge, or three months if frozen. Okay. This looks beautiful and it smells amazing. Now we can pour the wet into the dry, mixing until just combined. Basically the only things you could do wrong in this recipe are mismeasure the ingredients, overmix the batter, and overbake the muffins. Avoid those three and you're golden. These are lovely plain, but if you wanted to add some mix-ins, about 2 1⁄3 of a cup of chopped nuts or chocolate chips would be delicious. You could also do a streusel topping for the top. Very crunchy. Very sweet. If you check out the recipe on the blog post, I have a streusel topping linked if you wanna do that. Just make sure there's no big pockets of flour hanging around. And just like that, we're ready to get these into our wells. Add your papers into your muffin tin. This recipe will make 12 pumpkin muffins, and we'll be filling these up about 3⁄4 of the way full. Just distribute the batter evenly. If you have a triggered scoop, that makes things extra easy, especially if you're messy like I am. During the school year, I have a muffin rotation and the boys take turns choosing which recipe they wanna make. They'll make them together on Sunday and then they have snacks for the rest of the week. If you wanna make these gluten-free, it's super easy. Just substitute the all-purpose flour for a one-to-one. A gluten-free one-to-one. My batter is nicely distributed. It's time for these to go into the oven. 425 Fahrenheit for five minutes, then reduce to 350 and bake an additional 15. You can use a skewer to check for doneness. They should bounce back when you press them lightly. In you go. Once cool enough to touch, your muffins are ready to enjoy. They smell amazing, and you can tell just by touching them, they are softer than soft. Truly one of my favorite muffins. They're like a pillowy cloud that melts in your mouth. I hope you had a chance to make this delicious recipe, and if you like my videos, hit that subscribe button and check out my pumpkin playlist.