Pumpkin Coffee Muffins

Ohhh fall.  To be honest, I was never a big fan of fall until I became an adult.  I hated when school started, I didn’t like when it got cold, and Halloween/Thanksgiving is my least favorite holiday combo.  However, I’ve grown up to appreciate lots of great things about fall: football season, comfy knit sweaters and leggings, spicy chai tea, and hunkering down in the rain with the puppy and some movies.

Of course, one of the best things about fall is working in some fun seasonal ingredients.  Warming dishes up with things like butternut squash, acorn squash, cinnamon and nutmeg instantly gives you the fall-at-home feeling.  And obviously, one of these primary ingredients is pumpkin.

You can buy canned pumpkin almost anywhere, but you have to read the label to make sure it is pure pumpkin puree, with no additives like sugar. I found this muffin recipe online, and tweaked it a bit to make it more pumpkiny – and at the very last minute, added a spoonful of ground coffee.  Genius…

These are AMAZING muffins, and a great rainy day project to ring in the fall season.  Enjoy!

PUMPKIN COFFEE MUFFINS (makes about 12 muffins)

INGREDIENTS:

1/2 cup of coconut flour, plus another smidge (like another tablespoon or so)

1 T cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

2.5 tsp pumpkin pie spice (yes this exists – if you can’t find it 1/2 tsp of ground cloves will do!)

1 large spoonful (I didn’t measure) of ground coffee

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cup canned pumpkin

6 eggs

3.5 T melted coconut oil

1/3 cup maple syrup

1 tsp vanilla extract

DIRECTIONS:  Preheat your oven to 350 degrees.  Mix all dry ingredients in one bowl.  In another mixing bowl, put your canned pumpkin in and then add the eggs one at a time and mix well.   After you’ve added all of the egss, add the rest of the wet ingredients to the pumpkin/egg mixture.  Slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet, stirring thoroughly.  You will probably still have a few lumps at the end, which is OK.   Spoon the batter into muffin tins and bake at 350 for about 27-30 minutes.  Make sure they pass the clean toothpick before removing them and letting them cool.

A few notes:

**You can also add some fun ingredients like walnuts, pecans, dark chocolate to these muffins.  These turned out SUPER moist, which I love, but if you like your muffins a bit more dry I would add a little more coconut flour and/or slightly less pumpkin.

**Yes, there is maple syrup in these.  If that is too borderline-paleo for you, you can try a different sweetener like stevia or raw honey.

**Because of the high egg content in these, you should store them in the fridge and then pop them into the microwave for about 15 seconds before consuming.  MMM warm muffins!

Enjoy and peace love and paleo –