These easy homemade pumpkin muffins are sweet, tender, and packed with the warm flavor of autumn spices. Making delicious, super moist muffins with pumpkin has never been more delicious.
Muffins are, in my opinion, one of the easiest baked goods to make. They almost always come together with one or two mixing bowls, use simple ingredients, and require no special equipment, aside from a muffin tin.
When it’s fall, you better believe that I am going to be making spiced pumpkin muffins, as an easy way to get my cool weather pumpkin spice cravings met! These pumpkin muffins are the perfect recipe for fall baking because they are so simple, and yet so satisfying as a grab and go breakfast or afternoon treat.
Love Pumpkin? You need to try my Pumpkin Bundt Cake, Pumpkin Cookies with Cream Cheese Frosting, and Pumpkin Cheesecake recipes next. These three recipes will have you in sweet pumpkin treats all season long!
Why You’ll Love This Recipe
- No Butter – Baking with moist, rich pumpkin means that we don’t need a lot of fat in this muffin recipe. Just a small amount of oil makes them perfect – soft, tender, and delicious.
- Simple Ingredients – 9 very common ingredients are needed to make these pumpkin muffins, most of which you probably already have. There are no fancy health food additives in these muffins, just simple pumpkin puree and basic baking ingredients.
- Big Pumpkin Spice Flavor – Making muffins with pumpkin puree and pumpkin spice seasoning gives you all of the warm, sweet, spiced flavor of pumpkin pie, in a handheld muffin.
- Not Overly Sweet – I like my pumpkin muffins to be just sweet enough, but not so sweet that they taste sugary. You can adjust the sweetener in this recipe to your liking.
Ingredients Used to Make Pumpkin Muffins
Complete list of ingredients and amounts can be found in the recipe card below.
- All Purpose Flour: Regular white flour is perfect for this recipe.
- Pumpkin Spice: You can use a jarred pumpkin spice blend, or whip up my Pumpkin Spice Mix recipe to use in all of your pumpkin recipes this season. Alternatively, I give measurements in the recipe card for individual spices, including cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and clove.
- Baking Powder and Salt: Requirements for almost any quickbread or muffin recipe, these add seasoning and leavening.
- Sugar: I’ve made this recipe with easy to find, white, granulated sugar.
- Pumpkin: Canned pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie mix), or homemade pumpkin puree can be used here.
- Eggs: Eggs act as a binder to hold all of the ingredients together. Use large sized eggs for baking.
- Oil and Water: together these items add moisture to the batter and the muffins. For more flavor, substitute orange or apple juice for the water.
How To Make Muffins with Pumpkin
- Prepare: Preheat the oven to 350°F/180°C, and line a muffin pan with paper liners.
- Combine dry ingredients: In a large bowl, whisk together flour, spices, baking soda, and salt.
- Combine wet ingredients: In another bowl, combine sugar with pumpkin puree, eggs, oil, and water.
- Add wet to dry: Pour the wet ingredients directly into the dry ingredients. Mix with a spoon until just combined. Don’t overmix!
- Bake: Divide batter evenly between 12 muffin cups and bake as directed in the recipe below until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffins comes out clean.
- Cool: Allow to cool before removing from the pan to serve.
Tip!
Wait for the muffins to cool completely before trying to remove the paper liners. They should peel away cleanly and easily this way!
Recipe Success Tips
Adjust Sugar: The 1 cup of sugar in this recipe is enough to make it sweet, but it’s not overly sweet. You can add more sugar if you prefer your muffins to be more of a dessert.
Avoid Overmixing: When mixing the wet and dry ingredients together, use a wooden spoon or flexible spatula to mix in just a few large strokes. It’s ok if there is a little bit of dry flour in the mix, it will absorb later. Overmixing will result in tough muffins.
Pay Attention to the Muffin Cups: Fill each lined muffin cup ¾ of the way full. Overfilling them can cause them to “mushroom” when baking, and the tops will stick to the pan and not be as pretty.
What to serve with Pumpkin Muffins
As Breakfast or Brunch: Serve pumpkin muffins with all the other expected breakfast fixings, like Sweet Potato Hash, Breakfast Burritos, Breakfast Smoothies, and a perfect cup of coffee.
As Dessert: These sweet pumpkin muffins make a wonderful light dessert after a comforting fall meal. Try making some comfort food classics like Meatloaf, Ground Beef Stroganoff, or Instant Pot Pot Roast.
FAQs
Sure! Add about ¾ cup of regular or semi-sweet chocolate chips to the batter before baking, and throw a few on top for good measure.
Oooh, there are so many good options! Keep your add-ins to under 1 cup total, and consider the following:
Nuts: Toasted almonds, walnuts, or pecans will add crunch and lots of flavor.
Dried Fruit: Dried cranberry goes really well with pumpkin. Crystalized ginger would be delicious too.
Chocolate: regular chocolate chips, or chopped chocolate will add sweetness. Go for white chocolate if you want some creaminess too.
This recipe gives measurements for using either a pumpkin spice blend, or using the individual spices that come in pumpkin spice, which are cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and clove.
Store cooled muffins in an airtight container at room temperature. They should last up to 3 days this way. These muffins also freeze very well. I suggest wrapping individually with plastic wrap and then placing in a zip top bag in the freezer.
Of course! These would be delicious with a cream cheese frosting on top. Try the frosting that I use on my Easy Banana Cake! It’s literally just cream cheese and powdered sugar and it’s perfect for a spiced pumpkin cupcake.
More Pumpkin Desserts To Try!
All Pumpkin Recipes ➜
While I love making pumpkin muffins in the fall, I make these all year round too, they are that good!
Did you make this? Be sure to leave a review below and tag me on Facebook, Instagram, or Pinterest!
Pumpkin Muffins
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups (212g) all purpose flour
- 3 teaspoons pumpkin spice or 1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon, ½ teaspoon nutmeg, and ½ teaspoon ginger, ⅛ teaspoon cloves
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 cup (200g) granulated sugar
- ½ can 1 cup pumpkin puree (8 ounces or 225g)
- 2 large eggs
- ½ cup vegetable oil
- ¼ cup water or orange or apple juice
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350°F/180°C
- Combine dry ingredients, flour, spices, baking powder, and salt.
- Combine sugar with wet ingredients. Sugar, pumpkin puree, eggs, oil and water.
- Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients, do not over mix the batter.
- Divide between 12 lined muffin cups
- Bake for 20-25 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the centers comes out clean.
- Allow to cool then remove from pan and serve.
Notes:
- Servings.This recipe makes 12-15 muffins.
- Add chocolate. You can add about ¾ cup of regular or semi-sweet chocolate chips to the batter before baking, and throw a few on top for good measure.
- Storing. Store cooled muffins in an airtight container at room temperature. They should last up to 3 days this way. These muffins also freeze very well. I suggest wrapping individually with plastic wrap and then placing in a zip top bag in the freezer.
Nutrition Information
This website provides approximate nutrition information for convenience and as a courtesy only. Nutrition data is gathered primarily from the USDA Food Composition Database, whenever available, or otherwise other online calculators.
© Little Sunny Kitchen
Joyce says
Should pumpkin be drained on paper towel?
Little Sunny Kitchen says
Hi Joyce. I don’t drain the pumpkin for this recipe. The moisture in the puree works well for muffins!
C. Johnson says
Delicious!!! They are a hit with the whole family. I used Olive Oil — you don’t even notice the taste. Sooooo moist, stayed tasty 3 days after which is seldom seen in baked goods I’ve made in the past. It’s a MUST try! Thank you for this wonderful recipe!!
Myra says
Not sure what I did wrong. But mine turned out gummy. I even baked a bit longer, and they’re like mush inside. I double checked my measurements and ingredients. Not sure what happened? Then kitchen smells good though.
Diana says
Hi Myra, sorry to hear the texture was not great. I make these all the time so I’m not sure what went wrong. Did you make the recipe exactly as written? What type of flour did you use? It also could be an issue of overmixing the batter, you have to mix until just combined.
Alicia says
Would this work with Apple cider?