Last weekend we took our girls to "Grandpa's" pumpkin patch down the street. It's your basic pumpkin patch/bouncy house/carnie-run affair. Bunny had lost some privileges so she wasn't able to participate in the bounce action (maybe this weekend), but she seemed content to look for pumpkins, especially since her little sister was too scared to jump in the bouncy house.
After wandering around the pumpkin patch for a bit, she turn to face me with a bright idea.
"Let's make pumpkin muffins!" she squealed. "Can we?"
Now, we all know that when baking with pumpkin, it's far easier to open a can of pumpkin and whack it into a bowl, but we took our time and went the long route. She picked a pumpkin twice the size of my (big ole) head and we took it home, scraped it, and baked it. We only needed two cups of pureed baked pumpkin for the recipe, so the rest of it was pureed and frozen. I'll use it to make pumpkin soup next week.
Once the pumpkin was taken care of and we had our two cups' worth, the girls and I made the yummiest pumpkin muffins ever. (Recipe makes 36 cupcakes.)
But they needed a little somethin'-somethin' so we decided (or maybe I decided) to frost them with cream cheese frosting. When I make cream cheese frosting, I don't measure. It's just: 1 stick of unsalted butter, 1 brick of cream cheese, about a box of powdered sugar (maybe a little less), and a little lemon zest (or not). Beat it with an electric mixer until fluffy and frost the cooled cupcakes.
Once frosted they were perfection. But the best of all was Bunny saying, "Mamma, I can't wait to take a pumpkin muffin to school for my snack!" ...just before falling asleep.
Nothing beats that.
