Pumpkin Muffins

One of the foods that my mom has made for our family for many years is pumpkin muffins. She has normally always put blueberries in them, and our whole family likes them, especially my brother who is a big blueberry fan. However, this month we started experimenting with the recipe. I’m not as big a fan of blueberries as the rest of my family, so I suggested that we try using different ingredients and making variations. My mom has made the pumpkin muffins every week so far this month, sometimes a few times a week, and we tried them with dried and fresh cranberries, raspberries, and nuts. My favorite variation was the one we made last weekend with fresh cranberries and pecans. The fresh cranberries worked better than the dried ones because they had the juicy flavor that came through more after they’d been baked in to the muffins. They were cut into pieces with a bit of sugar added to reduce the sourness. We also used caramelized pecans which worked very well with the other flavors. They are definitely the best muffins that we’ve ever had at home from scratch, and are something that I could imagine buying at a café, especially around this time of year (Thanksgiving, pumpkins, cranberries- it’s all in season). I ate mine with a little cream cheese and it was a great combo. If you ever make muffins at home I recommend trying ingredients like these in yours sometime. - Hayley D.