Pumpkin Walnut Muffins

VisitPhilly.com’s Philly Homegrown section recently posted fall recipes from local eateries in Philadelphia. All of them sounded amazing and I hope to try them all in the coming weeks, but my pumpkin obsession took priority. Metropolitan Bakery’s Pumpkin Walnut Muffins were calling me. I’ve adjusted the recipe a bit, but the general idea is still very much there.

The recipe made two dozen large muffins, or 4 dozen cupcake-sized muffins. Your friends and coworkers will like you a whole lot after you make this recipe!

Ingredients:

• 4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
• 2 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
• 2 1/4 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cardamom
• 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
• 2 cups granulated sugar
• 2 cups lightly packed brown sugar
• 10 tablespoons unsalted butter
• 6 large eggs
• 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
• 2 1/4 cups pumpkin puree, canned
• 3/4 cup milk
• 2 cups chopped walnuts

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees. Line your muffin tins with liners or spray liberally with cooking spray.

Add the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, salt, ginger, nutmeg, cardamom and cloves to a large bowl. Whisk to combine.

In a separate large bowl, combine the granulated sugar, brown sugar, and butter using an electric mixer until it forms a coarse meal. It’s ok if there are still some lumps of butter in it.

Add the eggs one at a time, waiting until combined before adding the next egg. Follow with the vanilla extract, mixing to combine.

In a separate medium bowl, carefully combine the pumpkin puree and almond milk.

Add about 1/3 of the flour mixture to the butter/sugar mixture, stirring to combine. Follow with about 1/2 of the pumpkin mixture, then another 1/3 of the flour mixture, the final 1/2 of the pumpkin mixture, and the remaining 1/3 of the flour mixture, stirring to combine fully before adding the next mixture.

Stir in the walnuts.

Scoop the batter into the muffin tins, filling to just below the top of the tin. Bake 15 to 20 minutes depending on the size of your muffins — larger muffins will take about 20 minutes where cupcake sized muffins will take closer to 15 minutes.

Cool the muffins in the pan for 5 minutes, remove from pans and let cool completely.

These were so good, moist, not too dense, and flavorful. They weren’t overly sweet or even overly pumpkin-y, but had a great autumnal taste (if that makes any sense). Even two days later,they were still moist and delicious.

This was one of the more time consuming and work intensive recipes I’ve tried. If you’re craving these but aren’t up for baking them on your own, Metropolitan Bakery is selling them throughout November. Locations can be found here. However, it was well worth the time and effort to make. I was pretty happy to have these for breakfast three days in a row!

Related posts:

Spiced Walnut Peach Mini Bundt Cakes or Muffins Pistachio Muffins Chocolate Pumpkin Cake with Cinnamon Cream Cheese Frosting Peanut Butter Banana Muffins