Pumpkin, Pumpkin, Pumpkin

Round two of Pumpkin Muffin testing went much better. I have to give a shout out to Karina of Karina's Kitchen who has a wonderful post on substitutions. Her suggestions on sugar substitutions that gave me the ideas for these adjustments.

As I mentioned, I wanted some Thanksgiving-y (-ish?) treats, so my plan on Wednesday was to bake muffins and pumpkin pie. Yes, both gluten and sugar-free. Oh, and I didn't want to use agave nectar or honey. I guess I just need an adventure in my life.

I reasoned that since muffins can be dense, they would be sweetened very easily with raisins. The pumpkin pie, on the other hand, needed something lighter, so I used a banana. Both were delicious right out of the oven.

UPDATE: I shared them with a friend today, we both thought the pumpkin muffins were delish after we heated them up again (typical of gluten-free food). They really were quite good. And... we both agreed that the pumpkin pie needs another round of experimenting. The crustless-ness was a success, but ... the pie just wasn't that great. It was better warm and then we drizzled agave nectar over the top, and that made it pretty good. But still needs some more experimenting. Looks good though, right?


For the pumpkin pie, my recipe came from Shirley at Gluten-Free Easily. It is a Crustless Pumpkin Pie. What an ingenious invention, and super simple, all you have to do is add 1/4 cup flour to the pumpkin filling. I managed to follow Shirley's recipe exactly, except I replaced the sugar with 1 mashed small ripe banana. Now that I have looked back at Karina's sugar substitutions post, I could have pureed the banana to get rid of even the smallest clumps. A word of caution, you do want to use the ripest banana possible. Just peel your black bananas and toss them in the freezer and you'll always have some on hand.

I'll cover costs before giving you my own recipe. Canned pumpkin was on sale for 79 cents, I used two cans for these two dishes. Evaporated milk was $1.19, Allspice was $1.19, and Nutmeg was $1.19. Everything else I had sitting around. Total $5.51.


Pumpkin Muffins
Adapted from a community cookbook

1 2/3 cup GF flour
1/4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp ginger
1/2 tsp cloves
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp baking soda
2 eggs
1/2 cup melted butter
1 cup pumpkin
1/3 cup almond milk
1/3 cup raisins, blended fine

Mix dry ingredients.
Put the raisins and a splash of water in the blender. The water will help keep the raisins from being so sticky, and make them easier to scrape out. Blend them as finely as possible. Add all contents of blender into the wet mixture bowl.
In a separate bowl, mix eggs, pumpkin, butter, and milk.
Add the dry ingredients to the wet. Mix until moist and incorporated.
If the batter is too dry, add more almond milk.

Baked at 350 in greased muffin tins for 20 minutes.
Makes approximately 15 muffins.