As the mornings are feeling a bit more crisp, welcome the change in the season with the delicious flavors of fall! Pumpkin and cinnamon make such a wonderful pair, and these muffins are great to have on hand for breakfast, brunch or a delicious snack most anytime of day!
Pumpkin Cinnamon Streusel Muffins
Fill your home with the fragrance of fall with these spiced pumpkin muffins.
Yield: apx. 24 extra large muffins, 36 standard sized muffins, or 3 loaves of bread
Ingredients:
Muffins
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
2/3 cup vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
4 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
1- 15 oz. can pumpkin puree
2/3 cup water
Streusel Topping
1/2 cup brown sugar.
1/2 cup all purpose flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted
(optional) 1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts
Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.
Place cupcake/muffin liners in a muffin pan.
Mix the batter...
In a large bowl, gently whisk dry ingredients (flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, spices).
In another large bowl (or the bowl of your electric mixer), add oil, sugar, eggs, vanilla and pumpkin. Blend well. Add water and blend until fully incorporated.
While slowly mixing, pour the dry ingredients in with the wet. Mix until just combined.
Make the streusel...
In a medium bowl mix brown sugar, flour, cinnamon and nuts (if desired). Pour in the melted butter and stir gently until the mixture is combined, but some small lumps remain.
Scoop muffin batter into prepared pan, filling liners about 1/2-2/3 full. Top each muffin with a spoon full of streusel topping.
Bake muffins 18-20 minutes (for standard sized muffins).
Bake extra large muffins (as pictured) 25-28 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out with moist crumbs, but no wet batter.
Final Recipe by Glorious Treats- Adjusted from a recipe shared by a high school friend
Feel free to make this recipe into Pumpkin bread instead of muffins. Divide batter between 3 standard sized loaf pans. Bake loaves (in greased and floured pans) for 50-55 minutes.
This recipe makes a lot of muffins. Feel free to cut the recipe in half, or make some muffins and a loaf of bread.
Love pumpkin? Here are a few more delicious pumpkin recipes to enjoy this fall…
Pumpkin Cupcakes with Cream Cheese Frosting from Glorious Treats
Pumpkin Cookies with Maple Icing from Glorious Treats
Pumpkin Pecan Dessert in a Jar from Glorious Treats
Pumpkin Streusel Bread from Bakingdom
Pumpkin Granola by Two Peas and Their Pod
Pumpkin Pie Pockets by Cookies and Cups
Pumpkin Bread Pudding by Confessions of a Cookbook Queen
This recipe, along with one of my images, is featured in the beautiful fall issue of The Party Dress Magazine (on page 73).
Prop note- I purchased the paper liners shown in this post from Sur La Table.
I guess summer must end eventually, and for me, it’s ending today. I may have gone a teeny bit overboard on Luau treats… but you’ll be set with ideas for next summer!
Today I’m concluding my Luau treats parade with two simple, yet cute designs… grass skirt cookies and flip flop cookies. I’ve made flip flops lots of times before, (they’re just so perfect for summer), but the grass skirts were a new one I was really looking forward to. As I was making the skirts I was almost giddy with joy! When anyone in my family walked by (while I was decorating) I would say… “aren’t these skirts cute?” Maybe I’m crazy… (my husband has suggested that a few times) but I just think they are so cute!
Want to make some?
All you need is…
A batch of cookies made with my Sugar Cookie Recipe (or your favorite)
A batch of Royal Icing.
For the grass skirts, I also used some flower sprinkles (from Wilton- purchased at my local craft store).
Let’s decorate!
(Sorry, I forgot to number the photo, but the directions are describing the image from left to right)
1. To start, you can see the cutter I used to make the skirt design. You could use most any dress cutter and trim as necessary, or create a template, and hand cut the shape.
2. Using thick/outline consistency green icing, simply make lines from the bottom to the top (or vise versa, but I found that I preferred bottom to top, so the little tip left at the end would be covered). I used a #2 tip.
3. Continue adding lines, lots and lots of lines… until you are satisfied with the coverage. It is important that your icing is thick enough that the lines do not simply melt or merge into one another.
4. When you have added all the “grass” you want, add flower sprinkles (or small fondant flowers) along the top. Another option would be to wait until the grass dries and use royal icing to create a flower border.
Allow to dry fully (4-8 hours) before packaging.
Now, for the flip-flops…
1. Fill/flood a cookie in the color of your choice.
2. While the base icing is still wet, add polka-dots or designs of your choice. For the flowers shown I simply piped a circle shape, then used a toothpick to drag from the outside edge of the circle, toward the inside, creating a flower. I’ve shown this technique in detail in this post.
3. Once you have the designs you like, allow the icing to dry (at least 1 hour)
4. When the icing has set, use a thick/outline consistency icing to create the strap. I did a row (or two) of dots, using a #2 or #3 tip. Add a flower sprinkle, if desired, as an accent.
Here are the grass skirts and flip-flops, along with the full collection of luau cookies…
Here are links to the full tutorials for each part of this set…
Grass Skirts and Flip Flops (you’re already here!)
Hibiscus Flower Cookies
Tropical Leaf and Flower Design (round cookies)
Hawaiian Shirt Cookies (this takes you to the awesome tutorial by Sweet Sugar Belle).
And just in case you possibly need any more luau cookie ideas, here are a few tutorials I’ve posted in the past…
Luau Cookies with Fondant Flowers
Pineapple and Seashell Cookies
Starfish Cookies
Now I think it’s time to bid farewell to these bright and summery treats, as we embrace the beauty of the fall season. I’m heading to the store to stock up on pumpkin, cinnamon, apples and sugar…
Have a wonderful weekend!
Ok… I hope you’re not too sick of Luau treats! (If you are, hang in there… just two more and then I’ll be full on into fall!)
As I plan desserts for the annual Luau party my family attends (and I make special desserts for) I like to add something a little different each year. There are a few favorites I tend to stick with, such as my Hibiscus Flower Cookies (as shown above), but I like to mix in new ideas as well. This year I tried a new design, a wet-on-wet tropical motif on a simple round cookie.
Inspired by THIS SET by Cupookie, I made tropical leaves (just as I did for THESE Luau Cookies), and flowers (similar to the ones I did on THESE Summer Cookies, and Sweet Sugar Belle has a great tutorial on HERE). So, the final design is a Cupookie/Sweet Sugar Belle/Glorious Treats mash up =)
Although the design is a bit time consuming, each step it is quite simple to do, and perfectly appropriate for beginner cookie artists.
Ready to decorate?
First, you’ll need a batch of cookies made with my Sugar Cookie Recipe (or your favorite).
Then, prepare a batch of Royal Icing.
For this design, you can prepare just one bag (or bottle) of each color, mixing it to a medium consistency (when mixing the icing, draw a line through your bowl of icing with a spoon, and the line should heal, or disappear in 12-15 seconds).
This cookie design uses a decorating technique called “wet on wet”, meaning the details are added while the base icing is still wet. Each step of this cookie design should be done back to back, as quickly as possible (with the exception of allowing the green outline of the circle a little time to dry). Complete the full design on one cookie at a time, before moving to the next cookie.
Let’s get started!
1. Outline your cookie with green icing and allow the icing to set up (at least 30 minutes).
2. Fill in with white icing.
3. Immediately, add simple leaves (as shown).
4. Use a toothpick to create a point at the tip of the leaf, by dragging the toothpick from the inside of the leaf, toward the outside (as shown).
5. Now, add shape to the leaf by dragging the toothpick from the outside edge, toward the inside of the leaf, along both sides (as shown).
6. When you have completed the leaves, quickly continue to the flowers (below)…
1. Pipe two circles of blue icing (as shown).
2. Immediately use a toothpick to create flower petals, but dragging the toothpick from the outside edge of a circle, toward the center.
3. Throughout this cookie design, use a small moist cloth or paper towel to wipe off your toothpick between each “drag” on the cookie.
4. Continue around each circle, dragging the toothpick from the outside edge toward the center.
5.-6. Add pink (or a color of your choice) circles, and repeat steps 2-4 above.
1.-2. As a final touch (immediately after the previous steps, and while the icing is all still wet), add yellow dots of icing in the center of each flower, and a few random “filler” dots as well.
3. The finished cookies. One step I didn’t photograph is adding the little green “vein” detail in the center of the leaf (you’ll notice it in the cookie on the left, in box #3). For this detail, as soon as you have made the leaves, dip your toothpick into an area of the leaf with green icing (to get a little green icing on your toothpick). Then drag your toothpick up the center of the leaf, from the base, to about 2/3 up the leaf.
In addition to the tropical flower and leaf design, I made several hibiscus flower cookies (as shown in the photo at the top of this post), and also a bunch of little accent flower cookies. The little flowers were simply outlined and filled in, then I added a pre-made flower center, using Sweet Sugar Belle’s awesome technique! Once the base icing was dry (several hours), I outlined the petal shapes with matching icing, and then immediately sprinkled the whole cookie with white sanding sugar. Shake off (or brush off with a clean, small paintbrush), any excess sugar (onto a paper plate).
Happy Decorating!
I know many of us are gearing up for fall, and I’m looking forward to lots of fall baking…. but I have a few more desserts to share from last weeks’ Luau party before I dive fully into fall! So let’s relish in just a couple more bright summery treats….
For these colorful cupcakes I used my favorite Vanilla Cupcake Recipe and Chocolate Cupcake Recipe, along with my Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting.
I used pretty, colorful liners from Confectionery House (I have a full post HERE on my favorite cupcake liners, and liners that keep their color after baking).
I decorated the cupcakes with the Fondant Flowers I shared how to make last week.
The large/standard sized cupcakes I frosted using a Wilton 1M tip. I have a full post on How to Frost Cupcakes if you are new to cupcake decorating.
For the mini cupcakes, I used a large round tip (with about a 5/8″ opening) and simply held the piping tip above the center of the cupcake (about 1/2 inch from the surface of the cupcake), gave a good squeeze, then stopped squeezing and pulled straight up. Then I added a little fondant flower on top of the frosting tip.
By preparing fondant flowers ahead of time to match the occasion, then using pretty, colorful liners, this simple style could be adapted to fit most any color scheme or occasion.
Happy Cupcake Decorating!
In my last couple posts I’ve mentioned a big Luau party my family has the pleasure of attending every year. For almost 10 years we have enjoyed friendship with a family that is not only kind, generous, and talented… but they know how to throw an amazing party!
The decorations and elaborate preparations that go into the Lange Luau are always stunning! This year, Shelly (the party hostess), added a new showstopper… an amazing fruit display with a tall pineapple ‘tree’, adorned by the most adorable fruit monkeys! Shelly saw a tree like this on a recent cruise and took a photo. Then she got to work and re-created it just for her party guests to enjoy!
To assemble this beautiful display, Shelly enlisted her handy hubby (Steve) to make a metal base, with a thin metal pole to skewer the pineapples onto. This was the main support structure. Alternatively, a wooden dowel, secured into a base would work as a support too. The pineapple “tower” will be quite heavy. Make sure the base is nice and wide. The base could also be clamped to the table for added support.
Once the pineapples were stacked (skewered onto the pole), then the work of attaching the pineapple tops (the tree “leaves”), as well as the kiwi “coconuts” began. All of the fruit and tops were secured with bamboo skewers.
For the monkeys, Shelly assembled the head (made of an orange, orange slice ears, lemon mouth, radish slice and 1/2 of a grape for eyes), and used bamboo skewers to attach it to the body (a papaya). Then, with some help from friends, the monkey’s body is held in place on the tree trunk, while bananas were added as arms and legs.
One of the monkey’s got a few girly upgrades… eyelashes and lipstick (drawn with a marker), raffia “hair”, and a little flower lei.
As a little bonus to the fun fruit centerpiece, Shelly is allowing me to share a few images of her gorgeous yard. For more photos of this incredible yard, you can see my 2010 Luau Party post.
The yearly Luau party is held a hill side back yard, which is divided into layers with several beautiful decks and patios. The yard has been designed, landscaped and built into the showpiece it is today by the homeowners, Steve and Shelly. Every square inch of the limited space has been beautifully though out and put to use.
Enjoy…
Now, who’s ready for a Luau?
