Is a frosted muffin really just a cupcake?
Autumn.
My absolute favorite time of year…I love the colors, the smells and the weather. I love that it is Pumpkin Spice Latte season at Starbucks, although I’ve never had one, I love the way they smell. I love the way my house looks with all my fall decorations up. I love that all the stores are loaded with pumpkins and squash galore. And best of all I LOVE that it’s time to dress everything up in Pumpkin Pie Spice! This is my favorite muffin recipe, it’s only fruit sweetened so it’s not overly sweet which makes a dollop of cream cheese frosting just perfect to turn it into a weekend breakfast treat or light dessert!
Pumpkin Spice Muffins
(yields 18 muffins)
2 large ripe bananas
1/2 cup medjool dates, pitted and soaked (about 6-8 dates)
5 eggs, room temperature
1/2 cup pumpkin puree (canned or fresh roasted)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup coconut oil or butter, melted
1 /2 cup coconut flour
1/4 cup ground flax seeds
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 Tbsp. pumpkin pie spice
1/2 cup chopped pecans (optional as a mix in, can use for garnish instead)
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
- Line muffin tins with paper or silicone liners or grease well with coconut oil.
- Place pitted dates in a bowl, cover with very hot water and soak for about 10 minutes, drain well after soaking.
- To a blender add bananas, pumpkin, dates, vanilla, eggs, and melted coconut oil or butter. Puree until smooth.
- Sift all dry ingredients together in a separate bowl.
- Add wet ingredients to the dry and stir until there are no lumps.
- Stir in chopped pecans.
- Divide evenly between the muffin cups (I use an ice cream scoop which is about 1/4 cup of batter)
- Bake for 22 to 25 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Let cool completely on rack before frosting.
- Frost tops of muffins and sprinkle with additional chopped pecans and lightly dust with pumpkin pie spice.
Whipped Maple Cream Cheese Frosting
¾ cup heavy cream
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
¼ cup maple syrup
1 Tbsp. vanilla
- Whip heavy cream until stiff
- In a separate larger bowl, whip cream cheese until smooth, then blend in maple syrup and vanilla
- With a rubber spatula, gently blend whip cream into cream cheese mixture
- Store leftover frosting in an airtight jar in the refrigerator
This recipe is shared at:
Tempt My Tummy Tuesdays, Slightly Indulgent Tuesday, Tasty Tuesday, Fat Tuesday, Whole Foods Wednesday, Fill Those Jars Fridays, Allergy Free Wednesday, Wednesday Extravaganza, French Cuisine Fridays, Fight Back Friday, Gluten-Free Monday, Gluten-Free Wednesdays , Gluten Free Fridays
Simply Living Healthy 
oh my! These look heavenly! Can’t wait to try them!!!!! Thanks for sharing!
Andrea can you just come over and cook for your auntie. Hope u feel better. I love and miss you. Muffins look yummy!!!
I’m drooling! If you haven’t already, I’d love for you to visit my Gluten-Free Monday party at OneCreativeMommy.com and link up this and any other GF idea you would like to share. I hope to see you there.
I’m starting to really become interested in baking with less sugar, so this recipe looks like a great place to start. I was surprised by how many eggs are in this recipe, though it’s fine with me. Does it make up for sugar or just incidental? just curious 🙂
-Dana
Hi Dana…I know the egg thing can be a bit overwhelming at times! Since the recipe calls for coconut flour it requires more eggs…If you use another type of gf flour you definitely wouldn’t need that many eggs but would probably need to increase the flour amount.
Right, coconut flour! I forgot about that 🙂 Thanks for the super fast response!
Your picture is beautiful and boy do these sound amazing! Thanks for linking up at our Gluten Free Fridays party! What a fantastic link up of recipes and other GF goodies! Each week, I am so amazed! I have tweeted and pinned your entry to our Gluten Free Fridays board on Pinterest! 🙂 I hope that you’ll join us this week! Cindy from vegetarianmamma.com
Hi Andrea, sorry to put this here but I did not find a contact page. I saw on Mark Sisson’s website that you once posted a comment wondering about natural flavors in tea. Did you ever get an answer to that? Thanks much.
All the responses that I got were that “natural flavors” were generally safe for us to consume…I still hate not really knowing what they are but…
I’m sure you’ve seen this definition but I thought I’d post it anyways…I try to avoid them as much as possible.
(3) The term natural flavor or natural flavoring means the essential oil, oleoresin, essence or extractive, protein hydrolysate, distillate, or any product of roasting, heating or enzymolysis, which contains the flavoring constituents derived from a spice, fruit or fruit juice, vegetable or vegetable juice, edible yeast, herb, bark, bud, root, leaf or similar plant material, meat, seafood, poultry, eggs, dairy products, or fermentation products thereof, whose significant function in food is flavoring rather than nutritional. natural flavors include the natural essence or extractives obtained from plants listed in 182.10, 182.20, 182.40, and 182.50 and part 184 of this chapter, and the substances listed in 172.510 of this chapter.
I love Whole Foods. They carry Celestial Seasonings Teas. They have a strict policy regarding additives. If you don’t have a Whole Foods, try vita cost.com.
This looks wonderful! I would love you to link this up to our recipe linky at Katies Language Cafe! ~~Katie http://www.katieslanguagecafe.com/2012/10/french-cuisine-fridays-recipe-link-up-4.html
Delicious, yummy and healthy! I’m in love!
I would love to have you join my new link party Wednesday Extravaganza! Come by and share this or other recipes. Here is the link
http://www.hungrylittlegirl.com/1/post/2012/10/wednesday-extravaganza.html
Can’t wait to see you there!
Thanks so much, I’ll be sure to stop by your link party!
Fantastic muffins – great flavor! No frosting on mine, just a smear of 1/3 less fat cream cheese. The batter appeared to be really heavy and I was concerned that the baked product would be also – not so – I found them to be fairly light. On a side note, when bananas are super ripe and time doesn’t allow for any baking I just pop them in the freezer, fully dressed in the peeling. When needed just thaw a few minutes, peel, (which can be tricky and messy) or just cut the top off and squeeze out the fruit.
Love the tip on freezing bananas! I have just ventured into the world of freezing with the peels on…I have to say that the tricky peeling is worth it. I used to have bags of brown peeled frozen bananas…they always were fine for smoothies and such but they just looked so icky!
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Baked a double batch of these to share with friends, very yummy and I haven’t put on the frosting yet. I love to share good, healthy foods with my friends. Thank you for the recipe
So glad you enjoyed them! I love them without the frosting too…they make a great breakfast that way!
Delicious!
I made them in advance of my son’s first birthday and he LOVED them. We did not add frosting but might add some for his party.
Do you know if they can be made ahead and then frozen?
Thank you again!
Dawn
Delicious!
I made them in advance of my son’s first birthday and he LOVED them. We opted not to add any frosting but might add some for his party.
Do you know if they can be made in advance and frozen?
Thank you again!