Whole Wheat Pumpkin Muffins with Cinnamon Glaze

This week I decided to make some pumpkin muffins for The Littlest Apple.  I planned on using an old favorite recipe, but then this recipe popped up in my Google Reader just a few days ago.  These muffins contain whole wheat flour, which I had on hand from the Homemade Whole Wheat Sandwich Bread.  They aren’t too sweet or overly moist like some of the pumpkin muffins I’ve baked in the past.  In addition there is an optional glaze for these.  I’ll never turn down a good glaze!  The original recipe called for a cinnamon cream cheese glaze.  Yum!  I had to settle for a simple cinnamon glaze since I didn’t have any cream cheese on hand.  Obviously, the glaze sweetens them up quite a bit, but you can also leave some plain, as I did for The Littlest Apple.

So, how did these pumpkin muffins go over with The Littlest Apple?  I’ll just let the photos speak for themselves….

Look at that!  He’s TRYING IT!!!

Not spitting it out….this is good…..

SUCCESS!!  It wasn’t completely miraculous, but he had more than a few licks of the batter, and took a few (3, to be exact…you can see he’s got some of it in his teeth) bites of his muffin before crumbling it to smithereens.  I failed to capture that particular mess on camera, so you’ll just have to imagine it.  I’m taking joys in the small victories, like 3 bites of a new food.

I think next time, I’ll add the cardamom and pecan elements from the Pumpkin Pecan Muffins to the delicious whole wheat flour and cinnamon cream cheese glaze of this recipe, to create The Perfect Pumpkin Muffin.

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Muffins with Cinnamon Glaze

from RecipeGirl.com

Muffins:

• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 Tbsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. salt
• 1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 cup butter, melted
• 1/2 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup brown sugar, packed
• 2 large eggs (I used Ener-G Egg Replacer)
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• 1/4 cup milk
• 1/4 cup heavy cream
• 1 cup pumpkin puree (unsweetened)

Glaze:

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1/4 cup (2 ounces) softened cream cheese (omitted)
• dash of ground cinnamon
• dash of milk (to thin out)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Spray muffin tin with nonstick spray- be sure to spray the top of the pan too since the muffins will bake over the side of each tin.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, pumpkin pie spice and cinnamon. In another larger bowl, use electric mixer to cream butter and sugar together. Mix in eggs and vanilla. Alternate adding dry ingredients and milk/cream. Add pumpkin puree last and mix just until incorporated (don’t over mix).

Divide batter between 12 muffin tins. They’ll be quite full with batter- that’s okay. Bake 25 to 30 minutes, or until toothpick inserted in center of muffin comes out clean. Let cool in the muffin tin for about 15 minutes, then gently move muffins to a wire rack to cool completely.

In a small bowl, mix glaze ingredients. Drizzle glaze over muffins. The easiest way to do this is to place waxed paper (or foil) underneath the cooling rack and let the glaze drip off the tops of the muffins.