pumpkin ginger muffins

I am not done with pumpkin. Everyone has moved onto cranberries and is all blasé about pumpkin now. “Pumpkin is so November.” Well, I for one am not done.

I’ve been looking for a good pumpkin muffin recipe for a while. What has been holding me back is the add-ins – dried cranberries, raisins, and nuts are all fine, but they aren’t the perfect match for pumpkin that I was looking for. I finally figured it out when my friend mentioned that she had a great recipe for pumpkin muffins that included a lot of ginger. Of course – crystallized ginger has just the texture and flavor that I wanted.

My friend’s recipe uses powdered ginger, which I eliminated in favor of adding the crystallized ginger. It also didn’t include salt, which I thought was weird, so I added some. I also changed the order that the ingredients were mixed, adding the sugar with the liquid ingredients instead of the dry. Also, the original recipe called for half of the flour to be added at the end, after everything else had been mixed. I didn’t understand the point of that, so I just added all of the flour to the dry ingredients.

These are the pumpkin muffins I’ve been looking for – pumpkiny and moist and tender with spicy ginger bits. The only thing I would change is adding the powdered ginger back in – without it, the muffins are too sweet, and the crystallized ginger doesn’t provide as much spiciness as I thought it would. And with the addition of molasses, these resemble gingerbread, so they could actually be perfect for everyone who’s ready to move onto December-specific treats.

Ginger Pumpkin Muffins

Makes 8 muffins

1 cup (5 ounces) unbleached flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
¼ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
½ cup (2.5 ounces) minced crystallized ginger (optional; or add your preferred mix-in)
1 egg
¼ cup (1.75 ounces) packed light brown sugar
½ cup canned pumpkin
¼ cup molasses
3 tablespoons butter, melted
2 tablespoons milk

1. Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350F. Spray standard muffin tin with nonstick vegetable cooking spray.

2. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, and cinnamon in a large mixing bowl.In a separate mixing bowl, whisk egg until broken up.Add sugar and whisk until combined. Whisk in pumpkin, molasses, butter, and milk.

3. Add crystallized ginger to dry ingredients and stir to combine. Add pumpkin mixture and fold with rubber spatula until batter comes together and ginger is evenly distributed. Do not overmix.

4. Divide batter among 8 muffin cups.Bake until toothpick inserted into center of muffin comes out clean, 20-25 minutes.Cool in pan 5 minutes, then remove from pan and serve.