With our pumpkin spice muffins we teach the children about pumpkins . We take a pumpkin plant to the class and show the children the plant with the pumpkin flower and the small pumpkins starting to grow. We also take different pumpkins such as a butternut, gem squash, hubbard squash, queensland blue pumpkin and the bright orange “golden nugget” pumpkin. We learnt that pumpkins are extremely healthy and contain various vitamins such as vitamin A, vitamin B6, iron and magnesium as well as other nutrients. The pumpkin spice muffin made me think of Christmas as it contains some mixed spice, apple, orange zest and cinnamon as well as orange juice. We focus on general knowledge, colour, sense of smell and motor skills with this recipe.
Ingredients
280 g cake flour
4 tsp baking powder
2 tsp ground cinnamon
½ tsp mixed spice
¼ tsp salt
2 eggs
¾ cup castor sugar
¾ cup cooked and mashed pumpkin (we used butternut)
1 orange, zest and juice
1 apple, peeled and grated
½ cup full cream milk
½ cup butter, melted
Try the recipe out with different types of pumpkins
Method for pumpkin spice muffins
Pre-heat the oven to 190°C. Prepare a muffin pan by lining with paper cups or spraying with cooking spray.
Prepare your fruit and pumpkin. I cook the pumpkin an hour or two before, mash it and let it cool down. Grate the orange zest and squeeze juice, and put aside. Peel and grate apple and put aside.
Sift the flour, baking powder, cinnamon, mixed spice and salt together. In a separate bowl, whisk the sugar and eggs together for 2 minutes. Then whisk in the orange juice and zest, milk and butter
Fold in the pumpkin and apple. Sift in the flour mixture on top of the milk mixture and carefully fold in-do not overmix.
Put the muffin dough into the prepared pans and bake for approximately 10 – 12 minutes for a mini muffin pan and approximately 20 – 25 minutes for a larger muffin pan.
See more muffin recipes here.