“Where’s the cake, where are the cookies?” you ask. “I only see muffins.” Though there are only photos of muffins here, because I had only enough for one batch, (otherwise I would have made three batches: muffins, cookies, and cake, for the pure sake of getting photos), and I chose to make muffins. Like I may have said before somewhere in another post previously, now that school’s back – some of us are just starting, others as much as two weeks ago – I’m thinking more of easy, smaller, portable things to make, suitable for packing – whether you’re a lunch box or containers kind of person or brown paper bag kind of person –  and possibly quick to make as well, or if not, can be easily made ahead of time. And these muffins – or cookies or cake – are the ticket. 

(For some reason, I either think of swans or "Queen II" when I see this photo...)

I remember this recipe as being one of the first we started making when my family and I were new on the SCD. Nut butter is one of the first things to use in baking in the early stages of SCD; if I’m remembering correctly, nut butters are gentler on the gut than ground nuts or nut flour, which is more advanced. Personally, sometimes I find nut butter a little easier to use and work with than nut flours depending on what you’re making. For example, I’ve found pumpkin puree and almond flour, mixed together in a batter, don’t really go well together in terms of texture (it becomes granular) unless I use coconut milk to round and smooth it out such as with this cake, whereas I have no problem of that sort with nut butter and pumpkin. 

  • Adopt a GF Blogger Last week I adopted my dear friend Amy of Simply Sugar and Gluten Free, making her mushroom fritatta, which everyone loved. I was also adopted, by Maggie of She Let Them Eat Cake. She and her two little ones enjoyed the mango banana popsicles. Her post completely made my day as have everyone’s lovely comments. :) Thank you. Shirley posted the round-up today, and it just made my heart giddy reading her commentary about me adopting Amy. Thank you, Shirley, for your lovely words and for reminding me about that SCD page of mine  - I’ll need to work on it some more and update it!
  • RSS I know that many of you read Z’s Cup of Tea through the free email subscription. For those of you who prefer to keep track through RSS (or both), you can now subscribe to a new feed that I set up with Feedburner. (I’ll be putting it in the sidebar soon.) You can read it on whatever you’re using, whether it’s on your computer or a laptop, or a mobile device, etc., no matter what format of RSS is supported on your device. There used to be WordPress.com’s RSS feed but lately, it’s all scrambled – just more reason to use Feedburner.

Pumpkin Muffins, Cookies, or Cake
Adapted from Breaking the Vicious Cycle by Elaine Gottschall

It’s been nearly a year since launching this blog, and I still haven’t learned yet to cook pumpkin, so I am relying again, like last year’s pumpkin recipes, with canned pumpkin. Make sure it is a hundred per cent or pure, unsweetened pumpkin puree you’re using – not pumpkin pie filling.

The muffins in the photos I made with almond butter. Although either almond or cashew butter is fine, for these I generally prefer using cashew butter if possible as I think there’s better pumpkin flavour and also the muffins are lighter in colour, more orangey, when made with cashew butter than almond.

Makes usually 1 to 1 1/2 dozen muffins, about 4 dozen cookies, or 1 (8 or 9″) cake

Ingredients:

1/2 cup to 1 cup nut butter, such as cashew or almond
1 cup pumpkin puree
1 or 2 large eggs, or equivalent
1/2 cup honey
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg (optional)
1 tsp. vanilla extract (optional)
1/2 -to 1 cup currants or raisins (optional)

Method:

Preheat oven to 375ºF. If making muffins, line a standard muffin tin with paper cupcake liners. (For the parchment paper liners seen in the photos, see below at the end of the recipe.) If making cookies, line a baking sheet or cookie sheet with parchment paper. If making cake, line an 8″ or 9″ regular or springform cake pan with parchment paper.

Food processor: Mix all the ingredients together in a food processor until smooth.

By hand: Mix the nut butter and pumpkin in a bowl, add the egg(s) and honey; mix well. Add the baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and vanilla (if using). Mix in the currants or raisins, if using.

Muffins: Fill the prepared muffin cups halfway with batter and bake for 15 minutes until lightly browned (depending on the nut butter used, the muffins may take on a lighter or darker appearance); an extra 5 minutes may be required. When done, the muffins should spring back when gently touched. Cool in muffin tin or on a wire rack.

Cookies: Spoon small amounts, about a tablespoon, of the batter onto the prepared baking sheet, spacing 2 inches apart. Bake 15 minutes until lightly browned. Cool on baking sheet or a wire rack.

Cake: Pour batter into prepared cake pan and spread evenly. Bake for 30 minutes, until top springs back when touched or a toothpick comes out clean from the centre.

Enjoy!

For the parchment paper liners, cut five-inch square pieces of parchment paper and place one square into one of the muffin cups, pressing along the folds to crease them as best you can. Repeat with the rest of the parchment paper squares. I ran out of cupcake liners, would you believe it, so I used this parchment paper liner idea that I got from Martha Stewart via Apartment Therapy. Truth be told, I don’t think all the pieces I cut were exactly five inches but they still worked. If you’re afraid of the excess parchment paper getting singed or burnt, trim the edges before baking.

Baking, Food, Muffins, Recipes

,

September 8, 2010

19 Comments