This is my favorite pumpkin muffin recipe. I’ve played with it for years, finally finding the perfect mix of ingredients to make a yummy, moist and flavorful pumpkin muffin, or pumpkin muffin top, that is also low in fat, and pretty darn healthy. Made with whole wheat flour, oat bran and flax seed meal, they pack a nice nutritious punch, yet still manage to be yummy enough that they are a huge hit with my ultra picky eater. As long as she doesn’t see what goes in to them, it’s all good.
Here’s what you need…
- 2 Cups White Whole Wheat or Whole Wheat Flour (I like King Arthur’s or Trader Joe’s)
- 1 1/4 cups Oat Flour (I use Arrowhead Mills Oat Flour) or Oat Bran (I use Trader Joe’s)
- 2 tsp Baking Soda
- 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
- 2 tbsp Cinnamon
- 2+ tbsp Pumpkin Pie Spice (we like our pumpkin spicy, so some may like less)
- 3/4 cup Flax Seed Meal (I like Bob’s Red Mill)
- 1/2 – 1 tsbp Salt
- 1 1/2 cups Sugar – white, brown or combo
- 2 cups Canned Pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)
- Approx 1 cup Cinnamon Applesauce (I use 3 individual serving cups of applesauce)
- 2/3 cup water
- 5 large egg whites
- Walnuts or pecans as desired
First things first, preheat your oven to 350 degress. Making these is super simple – combine all of your dry ingredients in one bowl, and combine your wet ingredients (pumpkin, water, egg whites, applesauce) in another. Than mix them together.
I think applesauce is the quiet star of these muffins. If you notice there is not a single drop of oil in them. I slowly decreased using oil in my muffins, adding more applesauce, until it became all applesauce. Bye bye oil!
When I make muffins, I make half the batch as muffin tops and half as muffins. The main reason I do this is my daughter is a nut allergy kid, so no nuts for her. However I LOVE nuts in my baked goods, so I make hers first, as muffin tops. She likes the shape of them (we are big fans of Vitatop’s Muffin Tops), and they are so easy to freeze and toss into her lunchbox or backpack. After her muffins are cooked (I always cook our batches separately), I than add nuts to the muffin batter, and make mine in traditional muffin tins. This leaves us no confusion on which ones have nuts and which ones don’t.
No nuts.
Nuts.
Whichever way you go – grease your muffin pan or muffintop pan, than fill them up! For this recipe I made 12 muffin tops and 18 muffins. I bake the muffin tops at about 12 minutes, and the muffins for about 15. Remove from oven and let cool.
And now enjoy! I usually can not resist having one fresh out of the oven, with butter (well, there goes that low-fat thing I guess).
I also added a few dried cranberries to this batch. Anxious to try one and see if that might become a regular addition.
Pumpkin muffin tops for my girl!
I love love love this recipe. It manages to combine good for you with great tasting. That’s a win win!
These… look… so… good! I’ve buzzed you, and added you to my reader. I really like your blog. The design is so clean, and your recipes are to die for. I could make a lot of them gluten free easily [and who doesn't like easy baking, right?]
Leanne, thank you so much, I really appreciate it!
I am actually hoping to have one of my gluten free friends share some of her tried and true recipes with me so that I can include them here. We have three friends who all have to avoid gluten, so I’m often trying to think of substitutions and alternate options for them, so they aren’t left out when we bring out the treats. Every time I go to the store I see so many new gluten free options – it’s great!
These look so good! Love the muffin top idea – that’s usually my favorite part of a muffin anyway =)
Oooh these look so good! I need to start adding applesauce instead of oil to muffin recipes – so much healthier! Love those photos too!
Why do you use two different kinds of flour. I have a box of Trader Joe’s pancake mix…I wonder if that would work. Im trying to learn some new healthy recipes….thank you for this one.
Rosa, it’s actually a single flour – called White Wheat Flour. It’s a great product that I LOVE for baking muffins.
I’m new to cooking/baking gluten free, how would I transform this recipe? I know I can’t have the white wheat flour.
Thanks
Lindsey – you know, I’ve actually not tried any true gluten free baking. I try to find some gluten free alternatives, but the baking itself I have yet to attempt. I do have a good friend though who does, and I can ask her what she recommends. She’s often experimenting and trying new recipes. I’m encouraging her to get a blog up just for that!
I think the question above about two types of flour may have been about the oat flour–and if not, that’s what I’d like to ask about. Can that be subbed?
Ah – the oat flour. Yes. The original recipe I started with called for 3 1/4 cups of flour, and I just play with that, using different amounts of different ingredients. I usually do a cup or so of oat flour, or oat bran, or straight oatmeal. It can certainly be made with just flour. Currently I’m using oat bran in place of the oat flour, but I have found this recipe to be really flexible and forgiving (I’ve yet to screw it up basically!).
These look so good, healthy and filling, I love that you use the healthier flours and applesauce. Visiting from Createlive!
just a pointer: you keep saying “than” do this, it’s then, not than! ergh
I wonder how these would be with old-fashioned oats…
Definitely making these asap (better hurry while I can still find pumpkin) – and I really do need to start making larger batches and freezing stuff more! Sure saves time! Thanks!
My question is: How much batter do you put in the muffin top pans?
I usually put enough so that it covers the entire surface of the muffin well (so you don’t see any of the bottom of the well, just the muffin batter), but not so full that the batter come all the way up over the well. Hope that helps!
Great recipe, thank you. I have made it gluten-free and sugar-free: I substituted the white whole wheat flour with 1 cup gluten-free all purpose flour & 1 cup coconut flour and replaced the sugar with Splenda (In lieu of Stevia because I had not much left). These are really really good, super for breakfast, a treat or dessert!
Please let me know if you’re looking for a author for your weblog. You have some really great articles and I feel I would be a good asset. If you ever want to take some of the load off, I’d really like to write some material for your blog in exchange for a link back to mine. Please shoot me an email if interested. Regards!
My son and I made this recipe this morning with a surplus of roasted Golden Nugget squash right from our own garden! To keep it low fat, we only sprinkled a few nuts, pecans and pepitas, on the tops of the muffins.
They are delicious and we both wanted to say thank you!!
We had scoured the web for “healthy pumpkin muffin” recipes. Many that were labeled “healthy” were actually made with refined grains, too much sugar and tons of fat. Crazy! Yours are healthy and delicious. We also added a few tablespoons of flax seed meal into the recipe and used soy milk instead of water.
Charity, I’m so glad that you enjoyed them! While I make a lot of crazy decadent over the top desserts, my muffins are really the ones that are my favorites, as they were created to feed my kiddos to start their day. Thank you for sharing that they worked out well for you!