Pumpkin Spice Latte Muffins

Let me tell you a story. One upon a time, there was a band geek. She baked a lot. I guess you could say she was a baking band geek...but anyway, one day, she got a pumpkin from the grocery store. She got all the goop out of that pumpkin so she could bake with it. She baked muffins, and scones, and all kinds of super duper amazing, "five thumbs up" kind of things with that fresh pumpkin. It was just like canned pumpkin, but better! The rest of the amazing fresh pumpkin went into the freezer so she could bake with it all year long.

Now, that baking band geek had a mother. No, this isn't one of those sad Disney stories where you grow up and realize that the princess never had a family. Anyway, her mother ate bananas a lot. When her mother didn't eat the bananas before they went bad, she would peel them and put them in a big bag in the freezer, because gross old bananas are the best for baking with. This bag of bananas kept growing and growing, until in was so full, the band geek's mother told the band geek to take it with her to school or else it was getting thrown away. So the baking band geek took the bag of bananas to school and put it in the freezer.

Fast forward to the beginning of spring semester. The band geek and her two roommates all had no food, because they all had just gotten back from winter break. All three of them went grocery shopping, and got way too much food. So much food, that it wouldn't all fit in the freezer. The roommates found the massive amount of pumpkin and the big bag of bananas, both taking up lots of precious freezer space. One of the roommates got an idea; what if we baked ALL of the pumpkin and banana today?

So the band geek and the roommate baked up two cups of pumpkin and about 20 old bananas. They baked, and baked and baked. They made strawberry banana bread, and brown sugar banana bread, and apple pumpkin streusel muffins, and pumpkin pop-tarts, and pumpkin swirl brownies, and banana chocolate chip streusel muffins, and pumpkin garlic knots, and two different pumpkin cookies. They invited over all the noble gentlemen with large stomachs in the land, but none could eat even a fraction of the spread baked by the band geek and her roommate. And they all lived happily ever after, except for the 10 pounds gained by all!

And the band geek never baked with pumpkin or bananas again. Until now.


Pumpkin Spice Latte Muffins

1 3/4 cup flour
1/3 cup sugar
2 1/2 tsp baking powder
3/4 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
1 egg
1/2 cup pumpkin (fresh or canned)
3/4 cup coffee milk (or plain milk, if you just want boring pumpkin muffins)
1/3 cup oil

In a large mixing bowl, combine flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon. In a separate bowl, mix together remaining ingredients. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients, and stir just until moistened, batter will be lumpy. Pour into greased muffin or mini muffin pan. Bake at 400, 20-25 minutes for regular muffins, 10-12 minutes for mini muffins. Makes 10-12 regular or 2 1/2 - 3 dozen mini muffins.