Sunday Muffins: VEGAN Pumpkin Muffins

Happy Sunday!

Matt had to wake up at some ungodly hour today (7:45 am) to go to a history conference downtown meaning that I have also been up since then. I don't know why I woke up this early - it was probably a mixture of waking up at 6:30 for school everyday, the multiple snoozes on his alarm clock, and Willow deciding that my chest/face was the best place to sleep - but I was up bright and early. I actually really like waking up early - I often find that I am way more productive if I wake up super early than if I wake up later, like this morning. I have already cleaned my house, started laundry, washed all the dishes, and made muffins. In fact, I made some of my favorite muffins.

This recipe was introduced to me by my good friend Ella during of sophomore year of college. We were roommates and I have memories of making these muffins multiple times on the floor of our room since that was the only horizontal place that we could find. I was surprised by how much I loved these muffins (since they are vegan...and pumpkin) but they really are fantastic. In fact, last year we made these muffins for one of our old housemates who refused to eat anything "vegan" (Ella didn't mention they were vegan until after he ate about 3...) it seems that no matter who these muffins are made for they are a hit!

Last thanksgiving I made these muffins with my little cousin Zuma, her family tries to follow a grain-free-high-fat diet so we made a few changes to the recipe - I think we used butter instead of oil and maybe whole wheat flour? Either way, the muffins pretty much exploded (they still tasted alright, but they weren't the prettiest) so from then on I have followed the recipe in all of it's vegan-glory.

This recipe is super easy to make, hardly takes any time, and maybe makes a total of 5 dirty dishes. The only con is that you are left with a weird amount of pumpkin at the end (if you use a can) but it's pretty easy to find a way to use it.

Here's the recipe:

The Best Pumpkin Muffins (makes 12)
1 3/4 cups flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
1 Tbs. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
3/4 tsp. ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp. ground ginger
1/8 tsp. ground cloves
1 cup pureed pumpkin (I use from a can but make sure you get pumpkin NOT pumpkin pie mix)
1/2 cup soy milk
1/2 cup canola oil
2 tbs. molasses

Preheat oven to 400˚F.

Combine all of the dry ingredients (flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, and spices) in a large bowl and mix them together.

In a separate, smaller bowl mix all of the wet ingredients (pumpkin, soy milk, canola oil, and molasses) together.

Combine these with the dry ingredients in the larger bowl. Mix until combined and then spoon into 12 paper lined muffin tins.

Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the middle of the muffins comes out clean. Enjoy while they are hot or cold, with the left overs (if there are any) store in an air-tight container.

 This recipe is from the cookbook Vegan with a Vengeance, which is an awesome cookbook (all vegan) but all of the recipes I have tried have been great. It is definitely going on my cookbook wish list.

Also I the spirit of veganness I made a soy cappuccino this morning...who knew soy-milk made such great foam!

xx-C