TWD - Pumpkin Muffins

So this week's TWD recipe was Pumpkin Muffins chosen by Kelly from Sounding My Barbaric Gulp! (what a name). If you would like the recipe, please either buy the book, Baking from my Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan or you can find it here.

Now, if I told you I was looking forward to making this recipe, it would be an understatement of the year. I am not going to lie, pumpkin spice bread/muffins/pies shout "FALL!" to me. And I LOVE fall. Even here in Texas were it is still in the 80's...I can pretend it is fall a little easier when I have a pumpkin muffin in my hand and a pumpkin waiting to be carved outside my door.

I thought this recipe was great. It has pecans and raisins in the mixture and sunflower seeds on the top. It was a perfect combination of pumpkin to non-pumpkin ratio. I did the recipe verbatim except that there was a bit of a mixup at the grocery store.... I knew I needed quite a few spices...and a few of those spices I needed to buy. But did I actually check my cabinet and figure out which ones I needed before I went to the store? NO....so there I am asking my husband which he thought we had and we decided that surely we already had bought nutmeg and we needed allspice. Only to come home and see that I had allspice and no nutmeg. But did that stop me from not making these muffins? NO. I thought I had read somewhere that allspice and nutmeg were sort of interchangeable (please don't beat me over the head too hard if this is wrong).

Either way, with the allspice instead of nutmeg, they were still pretty good. But they were missing a little ummpf of spice kick from the nutmeg. It also didn't stop us from eating/sharing all the muffins. I made these Sunday and there are none left. AND I just went to the grocery store and returned my allspice and got the nutmeg...so I plan to make a new batch tonight....oh I can't wait.
For something fun/random, I made my muffins in cast iron muffin tins. I know some other people with TWD didn't need to cook their muffins the full 25 min at 400, but mine came out perfectly right on time. I think that maybe the cast iron helped even out the heat. (also check out the super cute pumpkin pot holder my mom sent us for Halloween...so cute).

So long story short, everyone should make these muffins. They are super easy....just make sure to add the nutmeg ;)
Sigh...I love fall. This weekend we are going camping and I have hopes that it might be slightly chilly (you know like high 60s ;) . I suppose we shall see. Next week will be Chocolate-Chocolate Cupcakes. So check back if you need your chocolate fix.