More on the Spicy Side -- Pumpkin Muffins

When you're working on a cookbook, you often look at the market to see if others are writing the same type of book or something slightly similar. Well, earlier this year, Ania Catalano published Baking with Agave Nectar, so I signed right up and bought it.

It's a lovely little book with very nice photos and a variety of interesting recipes. For the first try, I thought I'd give her Spicy Pumpkin Muffins a go. First, it was so nice to find and use a recipe that uses oat and barley flour. I've had some barley flour in my fridge for a while and was happy to use it in such a tasty recipe.

Second, this was my first time making muffins with pumpkin. I would definitely do it again. The muffins were really moist, yet not really heavy. The spices were a great touch, as were the add-ins. I used cranberries for raisins though, since I don't seem to tolerate raisins all that well anymore.

I made a little (8 minutes and change) movie of my experience baking the muffins, which I've included below.

It was awfully nice not to have to tinker too much with a recipe for agave nectar. Good show, Ania! I'll definitely be trying another recipe from the book soon. Enjoy the video. More notes follow it below.



In the baking portion, you probably noticed that I said 325 degrees F. I was mistaken, it was 350 degrees F. Also, when I tasted the muffin in the movie, I said that it was "gummy," and have since ate several of the muffins -- none of which were gummy at all. I'm thinking that it was just a single faulty muffin. Sorry about that.

Finally, those other muffins I've had since I made them on Sunday did not have the same stick-to-the-muffin-liner issue that the first one had. Could be that I should have waited until the muffin cooled completely. But that would have been very hard since the muffins smelled great.

Oh well. Live and learn.

What muffins have you made recently?