By popular demand, today’s recipe is for whole wheat pumpkin muffins, my new favorite breakfast! Don’t worry, those of you who voted for the pumpkin latte will get your wish soon.
I’m in love with these muffins, they’re good for me and they’re SO satisfying. I love that the whole grains keep me full so much longer than a muffin made with white flour and sugar would. It’s always important to eat whole grains, but especially when you’re pregnant.
A few weeks ago I decided that I really wanted to come up with a pregnancy powerfood for breakfast. I needed a muffin made from whole wheat flour (important for fiber and B vitamins), with pumpkin (for the vitamin A which helps prevent infections), eggs (full of protein, vitamins and minerals) and healthy fats like nuts and coconut oil (to help absorb the vitamins).
After doing some research, I found a recipe that almost completely matched what I wanted, Whole Wheat Pumpkin Muffins with Coconut Oil by Cookie Madness. I just needed to make a few changes to match my own needs and pantry.
My food goal for this year was to cut out all white flour and sugar in my cooking. I’m happy to say that I’ve completely met this goal! I’ve had to work hard on learning to bake with whole wheat flours, especially since I wasn’t really much of a baker to begin with, but it’s been worth it.
For most of my dessert recipes I use soft white whole wheat that I grind into flour. Sounds totally hippyish I know, but it’s actually really easy and saves us a ton of money. I just store the bag of wheat on a bookshelf and every couple of weeks Eric or I grinds several cups to store in a container in the freezer. It saves us a lot of money and also lets me know I’m getting the whole grain. I do have hard white wheat and red wheat but am starting to get the impression that those are better for dense breads than desserts and breakfast foods. Of course, I’m still new at this so I could be wrong. I’m often wrong!
I puree my own pumpkin (yes, that’s why I have two dozen on my porch right now!) so use that in the recipe instead of canned. But you can easily substitute canned pumpkin for the same result.
As for the nuts, I tried the recipe with pecans, almonds, walnuts and even macadamia nuts. I found the walnuts gave the best flavor and texture to me, and really made the muffins seem even more seasonal. You can easily leave the nuts out if you’d like, or mix an extra half cup into the batter if you want even more nuttiness.
Oh yes, our kitty Haldir is currently crying at me. I think that he’s reminding me to tell you that he deserves some credit for this week’s photo shoot!
Want even more muffin recipes? The older recipes aren’t whole wheat, but I’ve found you can pretty much substitute soft white whole wheat flour and sucanat (dehydrated cane juice) one for one with all purpose flour and white sugar.
What’s your favorite muffin flavor?
Whole Wheat Pumpkin Muffins
Prep time: 10 minutes
Cook time: 23-25 minutes
Total time: 33-35 minutes
Yield: 6 muffins
Calories per serving: 324
Fat per serving: 14.97
Ingredients
- 4 TBS
coconut oil
- 2/3 cup
sucanat
- 2
eggs
- 1 cup
pumpkin puree
- 1/2 tsp
pure vanilla extract
- 2 tsp
baking powder
- 1 tsp
pumpkin pie spice
- 1/4 tsp
kosher salt
- 1 1/3 cup
soft white whole wheat flour (heaping 1 1/3 cup if freshly ground)
- 1/3 cup
walnut pieces
Cooking Directions
- Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and line 6 muffin cups with paper liners.
- In the bowl of an electric mixer, beat the coconut oil and sucanat until well mixed. Add the eggs, pumpkin and vanilla and continue mixing until smooth.
- Mix in the baking powder, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice and salt. Add flour a little bit at a time until everything is well mixed.
- Spoon batter into the six muffin cups (it should pile above the tops of each cup). Press walnuts into top of batter.
- Bake at 375 for 23-25 minutes, until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean (you may need to rotate your pan at 23 minutes if front and back muffins cook differently).
- Allow muffins to cool at least 10 minutes before removing from pan.
coconut oil
sucanat
eggs
pumpkin puree
pure vanilla extract
baking powder
pumpkin pie spice
kosher salt
soft white whole wheat flour (heaping 1 1/3 cup if freshly ground)
walnut pieces
Cholesterol 71.67mg, Sodium 123.82mg, Total Carbohydrate 42.25g, Dietary Fiber 4.32g, Sugars 21.67g, Protein 6.91g, WW Points Plus 9, WW Old Points 7
Approximate cost/serving: By grinding my own whole wheat flour and making puree from really cheap pumpkins from the pumpkin patch and I can make these as cheap as $1.50. That’s just 25 cents a muffin!
Vegetarian: While there’s no meat, the muffins do contain eggs.
(Recipe adapted from Cookie Madness)
I love pumpkin muffins too. I’ve actually run across an egg-substitute (I like to eat eggs, and if they’re in baked goods, then I’m really getting more cholesterol than I want, something my hubby fights with anyway, that cholesterol thing). Anyway, one tablespoon of ground flaxseed mixed with 3 tablespoons of water (for each egg) – gives the consistency of an egg. I’ve tried it in my baked oatmeal recipe with great results, and my mom has tried it too, with the same results. Plus flaxseed is good for you anyway. That would also make this a vegetarian recipe too.
Also, separate question. You mention that you have tried the recipe with several different types of nuts. Do you just make smaller batches until you find what you like? Or do your exchange students just wolf it down, so you don’t have muffins all over the place? Or does it just take several weeks to get to an answer, because you make some, then eat them, then make more etc.
I’ll have to give that a try Cindy. We don’t have cholesterol issues, and eggs are really good for me and baby right now, but I love knowing ways to make recipes vegan when necessary. That’s something I love about cooking from scratch, you can really adapt recipes to your own dietary needs!
We don’t have exchange students any more, getting the house ready for baby. Since the recipe makes only six muffins, we can easily eat the whole batch in two-three days. I made it five different times before posting. I also tested it on relatives and my cooking class!