Thanksgiving Muffins | Food

A wonderfully tasty way to start your morning or perfect as an afternoon snack. This recipes comes to GalTime from Gilda Mulero, Personal Chef and owner of Naturally-Tasty.

Ingredients:

1¾ cups whole-grain pastry flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice

3/4 cup turbinado sugar

1/3 cup maple syrup

1/3 cup canola or safflower oil

2 large eggs

1 cup roasted butternut squash puree*

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup lowfat buttermilk

½ cup roughly chopped walnuts (optional)

zest of one orange (optional)

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Coat a 12-cup muffin pan with cooking spray.

In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: whole-grain pastry flour, turbinado sugar, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, and pumpkin pie spice.

In a separate bowl, whisk the wet ingredients: oil, eggs, buttermilk, maple syrup and vanilla until they are mixed together.  Add and whisk in the butternut squash puree and orange zest if using.  Combine the wet ingredients into the dry and mix gently, fold in walnuts if using.

Pour the batter into the prepared muffin pan.  Gently tap the pan on a flat surface a few times to remove any air bubbles.  Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a wooden toothpick inserted in the center of one of the muffins comes out clean.  Let cool on a wire rack for 15 minutes.  Enjoy!

*Note: to roast a butternut squash, simply cut the squash down the middle, scoop out the seeds with a spoon and place squash on a baking sheet skin side up and bake at 400 degrees for about 45 minutes.  A medium size squash will yield approximately 2 cups of butternut squash puree.  Alternatively, this recipe can be made with a cup of mashed sweet potatoes.  You can also use canned pumpkin puree; however, using fresh ingredients is simply the best! 

You can also use a 24 mini muffin tin and bake for approximately 8-11 minutes and serve the muffins with soup instead of dinner rolls.

Gilda Mulero is a Natural Foods Chef and Cooking Instructor.  Gilda is graduate of The Natural Gourmet Institute for Food and Health Chef Training Program and owner of Naturally-Tasty (www.naturally-tasty.com) a Personal Chef service dedicated to providing wholesome meals, dinner parties and private cooking instruction throughout New York City.  Gilda also created “Cooking 101 for Newlyweds” a charming cooking class for brides and grooms which has been featured in Manhattan Bride Magazine.  As a huge fan of the “little ones”, her focus is adapting adult recipes into fun and nourishing fare for kids; as well, she enjoys teaching and inspiring them to have a great time in the kitchen and at the table.  Gilda’s other passion is whole-grain baking and is enthusiastic transforming traditional baked goods into sensational nourishing treats.