Pumpkin White Chocolate Muffins

A small, sweet, dense & moist muffin that tastes a lot like pumpkin pie

My oldest son is a wicked picky eater, but he really likes these muffins. Pumpkin in a muffin counts as a vegetable serving, right? Ditto for zucchini muffins - right? Ah well, these are quite tasty and a healthier snack than some other options. They are also great for breakfast. And they will have your kitchen smelling so inviting and holiday-spicy.

A note about baking egg-free

These muffins rise without eggs due to a chemical reaction between the baking soda and the buttermilk. If you don’t use buttermilk, or need to avoid dairy, experiment with using vinegar to create the same reaction. I haven’t tried this yet in this recipe, but I use 1 Tbsp of vinegar in my wacky cake recipes, which call for 1½ cups of flour. The oil and the pumpkin puree help to add binding and moisture.

A note about chocolates and baking chips

For these muffins, I use white chocolate chips made by the Vermont Nut-free ChocolateCompany. (Check out their website here for complete disclosures and ingredient lists.) They are a nut-free/peanut-free designated company & processing facility. However, they do use dairy in their white and milk chocolate varieties and the dairy poses a cross-contamination risk in all products, due to shared processing equipment. Additionally, they make truffles and fudge products that contain eggs. However, their solid chocolate products, including their baking chips, are not processed on the same equipment with eggs. So I feel safe using them for my son, with his peanut, treenut & egg allergies. Every family has different sensitivities and different comfort levels, so please use your own judgment or check in with your allergist if you have questions or concerns.

If you need to avoid additional allergens, try the Enjoy Life brand for chocolate chips – they avoid the top 8 allergens and are gluten-free. (See their website here) Or look for a vegan variety of white chips. There are several brands on the market which offer vegan white chocolate chips; however, I wasn’t able to find one that didn’t have cross-contamination warnings for other major allergens. We don’t use any products that pose cross-contamination on peanuts or treenuts; so “processed on shared equipment” or “processed in same facility” are off limits for my family. Read labels carefully.

 A note about something entirely different – the legend of the jack o’lantern

Photo from MarthaStewart.com; Turnip Lanterns, 2007.

 The tradition of carving a jack o’lantern originated with the Celtic peoples. The folks over at Education.com posted this educational article sharing an Irish folktale, about stingy Jack trying to outwit the devil - and getting burned in the deal - along with some history and details of how the vegetable lantern morphed over time. Based on the ancient folktale, Irish and Scottish folks carved out vegetables like turnips, beets, rutabagas, potatoes or cabbage cores, with enough space to drop in a glowing coal ember for a portable lantern. When the Irish and Scots immigrants came over to America, they brought their jack o’lantern tradition with them, but discovered the native pumpkin squashes much easier to carve. I have many fond childhood memories of carving jack o’lanterns, especially to set out on the porch on Halloween night. With real wax candles and spooky flickering faces lit up. Didn’t appreciate the seeds and goopy, stringy pulp so much, but always found it worth digging out to get the final product. 

I also highly recommend reading the children’s book The Night of the Pumpkinheads by Michael Rosen and illustrated by master carver Hugh McMahon. The humorous story features line drawings and photos of  artistically thrilling jack o'lantern creations using orange, green & white pumpkins, along with a variety of vegetables. (One illustration can be previewed here). Not only does the author get really creative with the jack o’lantern names, but you just won’t think about vegetables the same way!

Now on to celebrating pumpkins and spice and Halloween:

Recipe adapted from Isa Chandra at Post Punk Kitchen Blog - originally posted on November 8, 2009.

Makes 12-14 small muffins.

 

Pumpkin & White Chocolate Chip Muffins

Ingredients:

1-3/4 cups wholewheat pastry flour

3/4 cups demerara sugar

1/2 tsp baking soda

1 Tbsp baking powder

3 pinches coarse or kosher salt

1 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp ground ginger

1/4 tsp ground allspice

1/8 tsp ground cloves

1 cup pureed pumpkin (canned or fresh)

2 Tsp molasses

1/2 cup light olive oil

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup white chocolate chips

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425°F. Put in paper liners or lightly grease muffin tin/s.
 
2. Whisk together dry ingredients, including spices in medium to large mixing bowl.
 
3. In a second bowl, pour in wet ingredients. Whisk together to smoothly incorporate.
 
4. Turn out the wet ingredients into the dry mix bowl. Use spatula to mix and combine to form a batter.
 
5. Fold in white chocolate chips, using spatula.
 
6. Fill the muffin cups pretty much full. My muffins did not rise much.
 
7. Put muffin tin in oven, close door, turn down the temp to 400° for baking.
 
8. Bake for ~20 minutes, until they’ve risen and a toothpick comes out clean from the center.

ALLERGEN INFO: contains wheat and milk – both the buttermilk and the chips.

ALLERGY ACCOMMODATIONS: The original recipe called for soy milk; I haven’t tried it, but rice or coconut milk may work as well. To replace wheat use a gluten-free baking mix. To replace chips - there are some vegan white chocolate chips on the market, but I wasn’t able to find one that didn’t have cross-contamination warnings for other major allergens. Read labels carefully. Or use a milk-free version of chocolate chips, like Enjoy Life brand.