I’ve seen quite a few Paleo based baked goods floating around. Unfortunately, I’ve found that with the almond flour needed, they baked goods are incredibly tough. I made a batch of ‘Paleo chewy brownies’ and about 13 hours later, could have driven nails with them.
So I took two Paleo Pumpkin breakfast muffin recipes and mixed them together and then added my own twist. What I ended up with was an incredibly moist, tasty, and gosh-darn-guilty-pleasure that’s got no guilt. You can eat them as a dessert or have 2 for breakfast.
Ingredients
1 8 oz. OR 12 oz. Can Canned Pumpkin [not pie mix]
3 Eggs [room temperature]
1 C Unsweetened Apple Sauce
3 tsp. Ground Cinnamon
1.5 tsp. Ground Nutmeg
.5 tsp. Ground Cloves
1.5 tsp. Ground Ginger
.25 – .5 C Raw Honey [optional] [See directions for proper amount]
1 tsp. Baking soda
1 tsp. Baking Powder
2 tsp. Almond Butter
1.5 OR 2 C Almond Flour [see directions for proper amount]
Optional Frosting
4 oz. Neufchatel cheese
2 TBS milk [or almond milk]
2 TBS honey
Mix all ingredients together in a small bowl until frosting is thickened and spreadable. Place a spoonful on each pumpkin muffin.
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350° F.
2. Using Paper muffin cups, fill a 12 muffin tin in preparation for baking the muffins. OR coat tins with coconut oil using a paper towel to spread the oil evenly.
3. Mix flour, baking soda, baking powder, and spices in a large mixing bowl. Make sure all are blended evenly.
4. IF using 12 oz. of pumpkin, add the 2 C almond flour amount. If using 8 oz. of pumpkin, use 1.5 C almond flour.
5. Add eggs, pumpkin, and almond butter to dry goods. Stir thoroughly into dry goods.
6. IF using apple sauce, reduce honey and add .25 C honey to mixture. If NOT using applesauce, add .5 C or .75 C raw honey to taste.
7. Reduce oven heat to 325° F.
8. Add 2 heaping Tbsps. of muffin mix to each paper cup in tin. Add mix evenly until mixing bowl is empty.
9. Put muffin tin into oven on middle rack and allow to bake for 35 to 45 minutes or until toothpick inserted comes out clean.
10. Once muffins are done baking, remove from oven and allow to cool. If serving as dessert, make optional frosting while waiting for muffins to cool.
I made these twice and each time the family practically fought each other to have the last one. Even my fiancé [who doesn’t do Paleo] loved the muffins. Some other recipe suggestions would be to add golden raisins or skip the muffin tin and bake as a sheet cake. I also did this in my tea loaf size baking tins and the batter rose just fine.
