Lately I feel like I’m caught in a massive round of catch-up where you never quite get caught up. I’m holding on to the knowledge that by next Saturday I’ll be done the necessary papers I need to do for school and the articles I need to write for a magazine, finished with the welcome evening we’re planning for our new pastor, and officially done work for at least a year!
Apparently two days a week at home doesn’t quite cut it when your official title still seems to be stay-at-home mom, the cleanliness of my house can certainly attest to that :) While I know I’ll miss work eventually, at this point I’m just really looking forward to having some days at home to get organized, have a shower, relax with the kids, and hopefully stock my freezer before baby arrives!
In the meantime, I’m tearing out my hair, trying to squeeze in enough time with the kids that they remember I’m around, and hoping the weather holds for just a couple more weeks so I can get my garage doors painted before winter really hits, especially now that they’ve been pressure washed and are a disastrous mess of mostly-bare wood!
Naturally, added to this we’re all a little sick, my little guy has been on puffers for about a week, and I’m convinced all the coughing I’m doing it going to give the baby crazy strong ab muscles to fight through on its way out, probably earlier than expected to get away from all that shaking and clenching!
So what do you do when you have no time to comb your hair but you opened too big of a can of pumpkin to make Thanksgiving dessert and you don’t want the excess to go to waste?
You make muffins.
There is nothing quicker than muffins – no mixer required, minimal time in the kitchen, and breakfast, lunch, and snacks can all be taken care of just like that if you love muffins as much as I do.
Obviously, my lack of time means a serious lack of grocery shopping has been happening, which at least has the benefit of much lower snack intake for me. I think this is probably the longest I’ve ever gone without chocolate chips (seriously, it’s been at least two weeks), and these muffins had to be made to use that pumpkin but alas, I was out of eggs. So, I can attest that these will work just as well if you substitute a chia or flax seed egg for the real deal! Just combine 1 tablespoon chia seeds, chia meal (ground chia), OR ground flax seed with 3 tablespoons water and let stand for 5 minutes – it’ll get gloppy and thick and can be used exactly as you would use one large egg. Yay for kitchen substitutions that work perfectly and are also super healthy :)
When I saw these muffins on Kate’s site, I immediately loved the idea of graham crumbs in pumpkin muffins, and I haven’t been able to get the idea out of my head. I’m happy to report it’s just as good a flavour combo as you might imagine, and the topping takes it over the top. I think next time I’ll double the topping, dish out half the batter and put a layer of the topping in the center of the muffin as well as on top, because it’s that delicious.
Fall flavours at their finest, with almost no time required! Homemade doesn’t get better than this :)
- 1 cup all purpose flour
- 1 cup whole wheat flour
- 3 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp salt
- ¼ cup sugar
- ½ cup graham cracker crumbs
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ginger
- 1 cup buttermilk, soured milk, or sour cream
- ½ cup canned pumpkin puree
- ⅓ cup vegetable oil
- 1 egg, beaten
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- TOPPING:
- 1 tablespoon butter, melted
- 2 tablespoons brown sugar
- ¼ cup graham cracker crumbs
- Preheat oven to 400 degrees and line a muffin tin with 12 liners or spray with baking spray and set aside.
- In a medium bowl, combine the flours, baking powder, salt, sugar, graham crumbs, cinnamon, and ginger.
- In another bowl, combine the buttermilk, pumpkin, oil, egg, and vanilla.
- Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir just until combined.
- Divide batter over 12 muffins.
- In a small bowl stir together all the topping ingredients and sprinkle evenly over top of the muffin batter.
- Bake at 400 degrees for 18-20 minutes, until topping is golden and a toothpick comes out clean. Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.
Adapted from Kate at Food Babbles.
I finally made these – turned out great! Which is really exciting for me because I HATE baking and I HATE it even more when my baking doesn’t turn out. And these did, so it must be a fool proof recipe :). I used the sourcream instead of buttermilk (as per your suggestion), and it worked fine. Thanks for posting – only 3 more cups of pumpkin puree to use up now :)…
Haha, that is always the problem with opening a can of pumpkin puree! Definitely make the pumpkin donut muffins too, they are one of my favourites :)
I would do anything to have one of these for breakfast this morning! Love the addition of the graham crackers – YUM!
Wow…Anna…what a creative substitution for the eggs! I would never have thought to do that! That’s pretty amazing. These beauties look perfectly moist and I LOVE that graham cracker topping! : )
Wow! Sounds like life is a little crazy over there and you’ve got a lot on your plate. Hope you’re pregnancy is going well!! I’m glad you liked these muffins. And you taught me something new today… I’ve never even heard of a chia egg or flax see egg. I now need to give that a try, just cause I never knew such a thing existed! Thanks for the tip ;)
Wow, you are a busy lady!
I love the idea of using graham crumbs with pumpkin!!
I can really relate. I am so incredibly busy all the time lately and it’s getting seriously overwhelming. I’ve never thought to use graham crumbs in a muffins before. Brilliance!
You sound so busy! I can totally relate, and yet I still volunteer for just about everything. I need to learn how to say no! These muffins look fabulous, great job :)