We got a gigantic box of fruit and veggies delivered a week ago which has resulted in us trying to be creative and use as much of it as we can. A poor humungous piece of pumpkin has been sitting in the crisper for an entire week so I thought I had better do something with him. I have mashed together a few different muffin recipes to create this beauty below – enjoy!

Ps. You use wholemeal flour, maple syrup instead of ‘sugar’ and pumpkin is most definitely a vegetable, so this recipe is basically a health-food, right??

Tip – when using an electric mixer, throwing a slightly dampened tea towel or cloth under the bowl will help reduce the noise!

Ingredients

⅓ cup extra-virgin olive oil
½ cup maple syrup (or honey)
2 eggs, at room temperature
1 cup pumpkin purée (steam up 2 handfuls of chopped pumpkin for 10 mins then whizz away with a stick blender – cool in fridge before adding to mixture)
¼ cup milk
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
½ teaspoon salt
1¾ cups plain wholemeal flour
⅓ cup oats, plus more for sprinkling on top (I cheated and used Be Natural 3 Grain Porridge – Golden Honey & Grains)
Optional:
½ teaspoon cinnamon, plus more for sprinkling on top
½ teaspoon ground ginger
¼ teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon allspice or cloves
Naughty optional:
a few pieces of dark chocolate, chopped

Method

1. Firstly, pre-heat your oven to 165°C. Then make your pumpkin purée & set aside to cool in fridge (bowl of purée over a bowl of ice water works a treat).
2. Whisk oil and maple syrup in a bowl to combine.
3. Add your eggs and whisk again until mixture is lighter in colour (see first picture).
4. Mix in your cooled pumpkin purée and milk using a spoon. Then add baking soda, vanilla, salt and spices (I didn’t use any spices in mine – just not a spice kinda gal!).
5. Add flour and oats and mix to combine.
6. You can either grease muffin tins butter or use muffin casings. I used casings because I am lazy and didn’t want to wash the try, HOWEVER the muffins kinda stuck to the bottom of the casings so may I recommend trying with a generously greased non-stick tray instead.
7. Fill up just over halfway in the casings/trays – these don’t rise like crazy.
8. Sprinkle a tiny bit of oats over the top and then bake for roughly 20 minutes. Always good to take one out and test – the usual way is with a toothpick & see if it comes out clean but I use this as an excuse to cut one open and give it a proper taste. If it’s still too doughy then just leave them in there for another few minutes – not too long!

Notes

• I filled up 12 casings and still had enough batter left over for 5 more – the obvious thing to do in this situation is throw in some chocolate and mix. These chocolate muffins were heavenly and I highly recommend you doing the same.