Pumpkin Pie Muffins
These gluten free pumpkin pie muffins are, of course, a favorite of my younger son. When he was little, he ate so much pumpkin and winter squash that he turned a slightly orange hue. Luckily, he's back to normal now.
I often forget how much I love cooking with pumpkin until fall arrives. Well, fall is back and I have been using this vegetable with a vengeance.
1 ½ cups blanched almond flour
¼ teaspoon celtic sea salt
½ teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
¼ teaspoon ground ginger
1 pinch ground cloves
2 tablespoons grapeseed oil
½ cup agave nectar
2 large eggs
1 cup fresh baked pumpkin (or winter squash), well packed (learn how to roast pumpkin in 10 easy steps!)
- In a large bowl combine almond flour, salt, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger and cloves
- In a vita-mix puree oil, agave, eggs and pumpkin until smooth
- Stir wet ingredients into dry
- Place paper liners in muffin tins
- Scoop batter into paper liners
- Bake at 350° for 40-45 minutes
- Cool for 2-3 hours
- Serve
Makes 8 muffins
These muffins are easy to make and will fill your kitchen with the wonderful smell of autumn. They are very moist on the inside. Beware of little children who gobble them up, leaving the wrappers strewn around your house! Not such a bad problem to have considering how nourishing these treats are.
What is your favorite treat to make during pumpkin season? Leave a comment and if you're feeling adventurous, leave the recipe too!
Posted on October 17, 2008 in desserts by Elana
you might also like: Pumpkin Custard
or Pumpkin Cranberry Upside-Down Cake
stumble it share on facebook site feed email subscription
print friendly recipe
email this
58 comments
Hi Elana!
There's something about fall that makes me crave these warming spices! Today, I woke up and decided that I craved gingerbread pancakes. I found a recipe and de-glutenized them with the help of some coconut flour. Both my husband and brother thought they rocked, too!
These muffins look fabulous too! We enjoy pretty much any recipe with winter squash!
Sounds delicious! How many muffins does this recipe make? Thanks!
This picture is great! Muffins sound great, I love pumpkin or squash with sausage and greens, and I love pumpkin with chocolate so I might be adding some chips to these. Thanks for a beautiful recipe.
Fresh baked pumpkins? Doesn't pumpkin filling come in cans?? (How does one bake pumpkin??)
Is it possible to use canned pumpkin in these, instead of fresh, and if so, how much would you use?
So far I've baked two small pumpkins and used the fresh pumpkin to make a crustless pumpkin pie and several batches of pumpkin bars to share with family and friends. All very yummy and appreciated. And, the heat from the oven is appreciated now that it's gotten colder--love that! Will have to try these muffins--thanks for the recipe. Muffins are such great comfort food.
Great idea for using pumpkins... I will try your recipe for thanksgiving...On the dessert menu will be your Pumpkin pie muffins...
Thanks for the idea
Andy
http://www.recipebuddys.com
Love your site and recipes. You are such an inspiration! I'm sharing a cranberry pecan bread I've adapted that presents beautifully and tastes great too.
This recipe yields 1 full size loaf pan.
3/4 cup coconut flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
8 eggs
1/2 cup olive oil
1/2 cup agave
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon lemon rind
1 cup fresh cranberries
3/4 cup pecans
Mix flour, baking powder, salt.
Add oil, agave, eggs, vanilla and lemon rind.
Mix well.
Fold in cranberries and nuts.
Pour into loaf pan (I line with baking paper)
Bake at 350 for approximately 1 hour.
Cool before slicing.
Enjoy
I love pumpkins...This is one of the many reasons I love and look forward to the Fall ;).
These muffins surely do look delicious and will give me the opportunity to use that big can of pumpkin puree I didn't know what to do with...
Elana, do you plan on publishing a cookbook?
You have so many recipes to browse through and there aren't currently much SCD cookbooks to choose from.
I love this photograph Elana! It's so beautiful! The muffins sound scrumptious as well, I can't wait to try them. Perhaps while my Mom is visiting this week.
Here is an autumn recipe I just posted on my blog:
Butternut Pudding:
My favorite way to cook butternut and acorn squash is to put them on a tray in the oven, at 400 degrees, for about one hour or until they are soft. You don't poke or slice them; just put them in whole. It's so easy.
After they are cool the skin peels right off and you can scoop out the seeds.
Set oven to 350 degrees.
Add to blender:
2 cups of cooked butternut squash
2 tbs ghee
1/2 tsp sea salt
1/4 cup honey or agave
1/8 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp ginger
2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp vanilla extract
3 eggs
1 cup coconut milk
Puree
Pour into greased dish and bake for 50 minutes or until just set.
I love pumpkin, especially fresh pumpkin.
I recently made a Pumpkin Spice Cake. You can find the recipe here:
http://www.lifeglutenfree.com/mama_baby_gluten_free/2008/09/pumpkin-spice-bread.html
Also, the other day I baked an organic pumpkin that I bought from my local farmers market. I scraped some out into a bowl and added coconut oil, honey and spices and stirred them together. It was a nice treat!
Hi Elana,
These look fabulous - pumpkin is one of my son's favorite flavors. By chance do you have a vegan cream cheese filling recipe? Our local coffee house has a pumpkin muffin with cream cheese filling. This would make a perfect gluten free version.
Robyn
I am enjoying Elana's Pantry and many of the recipes, however the Pumpkin Muffins are over moist to the point of being soggy despite careful attention to cooking temp and time. In my opinion there is simply too much wet ingredients and nowhere for them to be absorbed as almond flour is not very absorbent. This recipe works much better with coconut flour.
I agree with the comment about too much of the 'wet' ingredients in some gluten-free muffin recipes. I've been trying the muffin recipes from a new book, BABYCAKES, and the amount of oil listed (1/4 cup) produced something that looked like soup rather than batter. I baked a couple of batches of pumpkin and corn muffins anyway. The muffins are tasty enough but mighty oily and gummy.
~M -Those gingerbread pancakes sound amazing!
Jessica -Thanks, they make 8 and I've added the yield to the above recipe.
Hannah -If you make them with chips, please stop by and let us know how they were.
Ruth -I try to avoid canned food as it contains Bisphenol-A, an endocrine disrupting substance that has been linked to cancer. I will do a post for you in the next week or two on how to roast winter squash (including pumpkins).
Kimberly -I don't think these would work with canned pumpkin; if you do experiment with it, please let us know how it turns out.
Shirley -Thanks for your comment; your pies sound delicious and I'm very curious about your pumpkin bar recipe. Maybe if you have a chance you could leave it for us.
andrew -You are very welcome :-)
chana -Oh my goodness, this recipe looks amazing, can't wait to make it for Thanksgiving. Thanks so much for sharing it with us all.
Alchemille -Thanks so much for your comment. I'm not sure how they will turn out with canned pumpkin puree, it is somewhat wetter than the roasted pumpkin. If you make the muffins with the puree I hope you will let us know if they turned out ok. Yes, I am in the process "finalizing" a cookbook for Ten Speed Press, it is a very fun project!
Kelly -Thanks so much for sharing your butternut pudding recipe; it sounds so delicious!
Heather -Thanks for leaving us the link to your lovely pumpkin spice cake. Your other treat sounds amazing as well.
Robyn -I don't have a vegan cream cheese filling. I do have recipes for regular cream cheese frosting and a vegan coconut frosting. I think the coconut frosting might be good on these muffins.
Sandra -I made these several times before posting them here and they were moist though held together very well. They are just a tad more moist than a regular muffin. A few factors might have come into play with the batch you made:
Thanks for your frank and honest comment, I really appreciate it as I want to give you (and everyone else) great recipes that work.
Also, did you bake up this recipe using coconut flour? If so, just wondering how did they taste? I was quite tempted to do the same myself. Thanks again for stopping by :-)
Hi Elana I'm sorry for not commenting here as much as I should although I have kept reading - promise :)
Just wondering if I could use half rice flour and half ground almonds instead? The muffins sound so fabulous.
Since everyone is posting recipes (I love that!), I just thought I'd add info on the baked goods I mentioned.
First, for the crustless pumpkin pie, use your favorite recipe for pumpkin pie and add 1/4 cup GF flour. I use a mix of rice flour and cornstarch, but for those who only use almond flour, I think it would work. (Note: One of the reasons I am here is that I want to eat healthier and use more almond flour, agave, etc.) I used this trick to make other pies crustless, too, like coconut and chocolate. NOBODY misses the crust. The pies are really wonderful.
The pumpkin bar recipe I use is from celiac.com and uses sugar and GF flour (rice flour and cornstarch for us), but I believe non-sugar sweetener could be used and almond flour. I am sure you could figure it out, Elana! These bars are thin and tasty. They really need no topping although the original recipe called for frosting.
Pumpkin Bars
Gluten-Free Bar Ingredients:
¾ cup sugar
1 egg
½ cup pumpkin
½ cup oil
1/6 cup water
½ teaspoon salt
1 cup GF flour*
¼ teaspoon baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda
¼ teaspoon each: ground cloves, nutmeg, cinnamon
Gluten-Free Bar Directions:
Beat egg. Add other wet ingredients and mix well. Add dry ingredients. Bake in a greased glass 9” x 13” pan about 30 minutes until toothpick comes out clean. Bars will be lightly browned. They are very thin and moist. Let cool.
*I make up flour ahead of time using 3 parts Asian white rice flour and 2 parts Argo cornstarch. Measure out flour as needed for recipe. No xanthan gum is necessary.
Note: When I use fresh baked pumpkin and it's watery, I just use 2/3 cup of pumpkin and NO water. Works great!
These pumpkin muffins are amazingly delicious--it's so nice to take one (or three!) to my 7:30am classes without starting myself on a sugar crash for the day. Thank you!
I love your recipes; I've been meaning to post for a while. I wanted to pass on that, with great results, I consistently do the following:
-sub in melted butter and/or coconut oil for the grapeseed soil. In the chocolate chip cookies, the coconut oil lends great flavor!
-use Trader Joe's (unblanched) almond meal. I always have to increase the amount "almond flour" called for, but as long as I add flour until the batter resembles what it should (cookie dough, muffin batter, etc), the results have been perfect.
I also frequently halve your recipes, or add in yummies like shredded coconut, all to excellent ends. I do believe that these things--the option to half, sub, alter, add and still get an exceptional product--are the hallmarks of great recipes!
Thanks again, your chocolate chip cookies, banana bread and now this one are all part of my regular baking routine.
Instead of making muffins I've turned this into a loaf cake, it's in the oven now and the kitchen smells gorgeous. Thanks Elana :)
I did make it with 1/2 rice flour to 1/2 ground almonds - looks and smells wonderful. I topped it with a maple & lemon icing too. Don't know how it tastes yet as I'm taking it with me to work later, I'll blog about it soon enough though.
Kitchen Goddess -Thanks so much for commenting! Great to hear from you again. I haven't cooked with rice flour for more than a decade, so I'm probably not the best one to ask about this substitution. You could try it out and let us know your results, or you may like to post this question in the forums and someone over there might be better able to answer it. Again, thanks for all of your comments and for letting us know about your substitutions. Your icing sounds delicious!
Shirley -Thanks for leaving your tips and the amazing pumpkin bar recipe; I can't wait to try that one. I am completely in pumpkin mode this week :-)
Karis -Thanks for letting us in all of your recipe renovations. And thanks for your kind words.
OOOO Elana,
Your mouthwatering picture had me run into the kitchen immediately. In the last 2 days I made 2 batches of these muffins (which is quite a lot in a 2 people household) because THEY ARE OUR NEW FAVORITE!! I love baking pumpkin in the oven because it feels so cosy, autumny and smells lovely. (I do that often as a veggie side dish: toss butternut slices in a little olive oil with fresh rosemary, sometimes grilling a minute in the end)
but especially love the sweet pumpkin treats...
I added 1/2 a teaspoon ground ginger (allways looking for ways to sneak in one of my favorite flavours) and they were WONDERFUL! Thank you so much for your great ideas! xox Christianne
I tried these with canned pumpkin - delish! Interestingly, mine were dry at the mix stage, so I added orange juice until I got a smoother batter. They are moist, but a truly yummy mini muffin treat.
Christianne - So great to hear from you, I hope you are well. I'm glad you enjoyed the muffins and I like the way you increased the ginger!
C -Thanks for letting us know about the canned pumpkin, glad it worked out :-)
[...] I started with a pumpkin pie loaf cake, adapted from slightly from a recipe I found over on the great blog Elana’s Pantry. I changed the almond flour for half ground [...]
I really like how you used the fresh pumpkin! I have a pumpkin sitting on my shelf (it's intended for pies) and I wasn't sure how to cook it up. These muffins sound heavenly and now I know what I want to do with that pumpkin! I really like this pumpkin theme I'm seeing :).
Sophie -Thanks, my children are calling it a pumpkin "obsession," though as long as they're eating it I'm happy!
Hi Elana
Love your recipe ideas. I was wondering how do you store almond flour? How long does it keep. I bought some from my local grocer 6 months ago and I am wondering if it is still good?
Lastly, Do you know if even the organic pumpkin in cans contain that harmful chemical?
Best
Jen
Jenn,
Thanks for your comment. I store my almond flour in glass jars in the freezer. It keeps for up to a year this way (in my experience). Not sure how long it keeps out at room temp.
From what I've heard BPA leaches from cans into food; I'm not sure if there's a special can for organic foods, that would be great if there was!
Elana
Here's my write up:
http://culinarytravelsofakitchengoddess.wordpress.com/2008/10/24/autumn-leaves/
Kitchen Goddess,
Thanks, I like your version of these as bars with frosting! Yum.
Elana
Yum!!! I made these last night, and what a treat. As with your carrot cake, Elana, I soaked my almonds overnight, then removed the skins and blended them in my food processor. They still remained somewhat coarse, but worked beautifully. I replaced half of the almond flour with brown rice flour, and that also worked great. I don't have any problems with rice and it makes the recipe quite a bit cheaper as well.
Julia,
Thanks for your comment and for letting us know about your successful experiments. What great ideas you have!
Elana
Hi.
I'm planning to make these for my child's class snack (she attends Pasadena Waldorf). I'm using Trader Joe's almond flour. Anyone know how much more i need to use?
Thanks,
Beth
Elana, I have to eat an alkaline diet for health reasons, can't have eggs,or dairy. Do you have any suggestions for pumpkin pie? I think I can figure out the filling, but the crust, is still an enigma to me, please help, as I'd like to make one for Thanksgiving. Thanks, love your recipies.
In response to Beth's comment, I made these yesterday with TJ's almond flour, and they turned out great! I didn't add much- maybe 1/4 C at most. I also added a little applesauce to the batter and used slightly more than 1 C pumpkin, so they would probably turn out well with the 1 1/2 C called for if you follow everything else exactly.
Thanks so much for all the wonderful recipes, Elana! I have only been on a gluten-free, sugar-free diet for a little over 2 weeks now, and your website has been so helpful in providing recipes and helping me to know what ingredients to use! I especially appreciate the simplicity, as I am cooking only for myself and hate to buy a lot of expensive ingredients that will go bad before I can use them up!
On a completely different note, do you have any good recipes for pizza crust?
I started making these right after you posted the recipe. I think I've made them three or four times since then, and think I might just be addicted! I use the Trader Joe's almond meal as well, and found the first batch to be a bit dense (but still mighty tastey). This last batch I substituted 1/2 cup brown rice flour for the almond, and beat the egg whites with a bit of cream of tarter until they were fluffy then folded them into the remaining ingredients. As usual, I couldn't keep my paws off of them. Thanks for the great recipe Elana!
Beth -Great question. You may also want to start a category in the forums regarding this product.
Denise -Check out my crust recipe; It doesn't have any eggs in it...
Laura -Glad that you are enjoying the recipes. There will be a recipe for pizza crust in my forthcoming cookbook. It's in my publisher's hands now.
Sarah -You are welcome!
[...] Elana’s Gluten Free Pumpkin Pie Muffins, from her pantry of [...]
These muffins were my first recipe by Elana to try! I made them this weekend and am so excited about the way they turned out! I was so sad during Thanksgiving watching everyone else eat Pumpkin Pie and Spice Cake (an old-time favorite) when I couldn't have any. I have not had anything this good for the last 3 1/2 years since I became sick and unable to eat flour and sugar. These muffins are moist and taste like something I am not allowed to have but they don't affect me at all!! I used Trader Joe's pureed Sweet Potato (because I didn't have Pumpkin in the house), used 2 egg whites and one whole egg instead of 2 whole eggs, doubled the cinnamon (because I am an addict of it!:D) and added some chopped pecans! They are such a special treat for me! Thank you so much Elana! My next attempt will be the Carrot cake for my birthday that is coming up in February!
Jenna,
Thanks for your comment and happy birthday!
Elana
I made this recipe last night and I must say I was pleasantly surprised! I've had some bum luck with some gf recipes, and I thought the simplicity of the ingredients here would be iffy. I used canned pumpkin and made mini muffins, so I shortened the cooking time to just over 30 mins. The recipe made 24 mini muffins. I think next time I'll try zucchini!!!
ps... I just got your cookbook. After making these muffins, I was sold!
These are tasty! I added sunflower seeds and chocolate chips. I also made smaller muffins (the batter yielded about 14) and only baked them for 20 minutes.
Tried these today but used Penzey's Pumpkin Pie Spice. I doubled, but used 3 eggs, 1/2 tsp stevia, under 1/2 C honey, EVOO and added baking powder. Also used 15 oz can pumpkin. I baked them for 45 minutes and they probably needed another 5, but were still good. Light texture and very moist. Did NOT need to cool for 2 hours, more like 30 minutes. It will need a bit more stevia or honey and spices, but were still very good.
hi elana! i made these for thanksgiving coming up this weekend and i ended up having to make multiple batches because they keep disappearing! they are delicious and everyone who has managed to snag one absolutely loves them, awesome recipe, perfect for the season :)
I am from Australia and we use pumpkin in savoury dishes more than sweet dishes. We roast pumpkin or steam it and eat with main meal. We also use it a lot in soups and casseroles. A really great versatile vegetable. For the almond meal, I grind my own almonds when I need to use almond meal. This means it is very fresh and not oxidised from being ground for a long time. I use a bamix which has its own grinding container like a coffee grinder.
These taste delicious but I followed the recipe to a T and as some people have mentioned, they were a little too wet & dense. Can I substitute some of the Almond Meal for another kind of gluten-free flour, maybe coconut? Or do I simply need to add more Almond Meal?
Also I'm curious if sifting the almond meal will produce fluffier results?
I made this recipe tonight and they are yummy! Must say roasting and taking the skin off the pumpkin was sort of a pain. Looking forward to your tips on doing this...I probably did something wrong.
They are just the thing for a cozy fall!
Thanks Elana!
Elana has a great post on how to roast pumpkin:
http://www.elanaspantry.com/how-to-roast-a-pumpkin-in-10-steps/
Hi Elana -
I love your site and all of your recipes! I try to soak all grains & nuts before using them to make the nutrients more available. Do you have any suggestions on how I can modify your almond flour recips to include soaking of the flour?
Thanks!
I'm making these today and can hardly wait to get them into the oven. The sooner they bake, the sooner I eat :)
Thanks for all the wonderful, CLEAN recipes Elana. I think you're fabulous!
[...] for Thanksgiving. So I started thinking about this and decided to use Elana’s recipe for Pumpkin Pie Muffins. Instead of muffins though, I made the batter into small loaves. I used honey instead of agave ( [...]
Just made a slightly different version of pumpkin muffins...I used both coconut and almond flours, and canned pumpkin (I'm going to try fresh soon!) and the muffins are very moist and tender but spongy, almost like cake. I'll post the recipe on my blog, My Experiment in Gluten Free Living:
http://autoimmunediseasesgfliving.blogspot.com/
Great picture Elana! You're an inspiration to so many!
I just have these in the oven now. My boyfriend can't eat eggs so I substituted the eggs with 2 T ground flax seeds, 1 1/2 t Ener-G egg replacer and 5 T water. I'll let you know how they come out! The batter tasted delicious...
I just made these last night with a bit less than a cup of canned pumpkin. They were phenomenal! In fact, my husband and I already finished the batch. I may have to make more tonight, and will definitely be making them for Thanksgiving next week! Thank you.
Yum!!!
I added 1/2 cup extra almond flour, and they were very moist and delicious. Also cut my baking time to 25 - 30 min.
Delicious way to use fresh pumpkin!
Thank you!
: )
Noel
still wondering if ingredient and baking time variations are needed due to altitude and/or humidity differences
These are my favorite gf muffins and I make them often! They make the whole house smell like the holidays and they're super tasty. I usually make them with just 3 tablespoons of agave though since I'm trying to cut back on the sugar. Excellent recipe! ps. Love your cookbook Elana. The chocolate cream pie is to die for! I made one for Thanksgiving dinner and it was a huge hit - even among the gluten eaters!
I have to add a thumbs-up for the chocolate pie also. We've made it several times, and everyone loved it. Great as a chocolate "moose" in ramekins too -- and frozen as fudge-cicles! : )
Thanks so much for your wonderful recipes! This one is an instant hit. I didn't have any pumpkins available, so I used garnet yams, baked in the oven (I use yams/sweet potatoes, pumpkin and butternut squash interchangeably based on availability). I am diabetic, so I replaced the agave nectar with an extra 1/2 cup of yam, 1tbs of molasses, and liquid stevia to taste*. My 8 year old son loves these (for him, I used thrice the amount of cinnamon). :-)
According to nutritiondata.com, this substitution combo makes 1/6 of the recipe a glycemic load of 6, if yams are used, but only a glycemic load of 3 if pumpkin is used! Pretty awesome & so delicious!
This was my first attempt with almond flour, and I am sooo pleased :) Thanks for making gf baking so simple!