I love pumpkin muffins. I’m not really a pumpkin spice person, as far as candles and lattes and hand soaps and everything else that becomes pumpkinafied in the fall, but pumpkin muffins, I’m a sucker for. I used to get my fix from Aldi or, when I was feeling fancy, Panera Bread. But now I have neither of those things close to me, so naturally I need to make my own. The problem is, I’ve tried a couple of box mixes and don’t like any of them. Anything that says “pumpkin spice” instead of just pumpkin is usually a dud. I always check the directions too; if it doesn’t call for pumpkin (the canned pumpkin, NOT thepumpkin pie filling, two different things), it’s not very good. Notably the Pillsbury Quick Bread brand SUCKS, both the pumpkin and apple kind, which is unfortunate because it seems to be the only thing I can find year round.

When I went looking for a box mix a few weeks ago (mid September), I was surprised at my limited options. But I reeeeeally wanted pumpkin muffins. Nothing left to do but make them from scratch. I’d never made this specific kind before, but I use a family recipe for applesauce muffins all the time. I’m not really intimidated by baking (except for all the dishes it creates), so why not? I grabbed myself a large can of pumpkin guts. I proudly keep a well stocked kitchen, so I figured I already had everything else I needed at home.

The first thing I had to do was find a recipe. I learned about a month ago when I was making focaccia for the first time that this process is not as simple as I expected it to be. Every recipe varies slightly, and some of them read like you’re making a completely different thing. I started by looking for a Panera dupe; I know I like their version, and I was sure someone had put in the work to make a decent copy. In the course of my searching, I found out that Panera has stopped making these muffins entirely! I settled on this version from a website called Food Hussy, which I know nothing about. For a solid comparison, I wanted a recipe from a bigger name, something that I knew would have been thoroughly kitchen tested. I ended up using Pioneer Woman’s (which included a cream cheese frosting that I did not use; I don’t like cream cheese, to my great shame; I didn’t include the raisins because I don’t hate myself). 

I anticipated liking the Pioneer Woman recipe more, mostly because it had evaporated milk in it while the Food Hussy recipe did not. PW also left out the baking soda and included vanilla, while Food Hussy used vegetable oil. I ended up being right about having everything I needed already in my pantry except for the ground ginger and technically the pumpkin pie spice, though I knew enough to guess that something with “spice” in the name was probably just a mix of other things that I did have (Wikipedia says cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves, and sometimes allspice). I’m not an expert baker by any means, I just know how to follow instructions, so I didn’t have in-depth knowledge on how these differences would affect the muffins.

I made the FH batch first, using a normal sized muffin tin rather than the jumbo version it suggested. It made almost two dozen muffins, and I filled those cups to the top. (If I were a professional, I would have counted when I made them instead of eating some, giving some away, and then deciding to write this post a week later.) The only thing I left out was the powdered sugar topping. I cleaned out my mixing bowl, dried it, then made the PW recipe. I will admit, I messed up the butter on this one; it went in too cold and did not combine properly, even when I tried using a hand mixer (which probably meant I overmixed them). Then the tops came out eeeeever so slightly too dark. At this point in the process, I expected to like the FH muffins more simply because I felt like I’d messed up PW’s recipe. It made less than a dozen muffins (because who only fills the cups half full?). Oh, I also used paper muffin cups for both, even though both recipes opted not to. 

But when all the muffins were out of the oven, and both had been given time to cool… I really thought they tasted about the same. Only the streusel on top added some variety to me, the salt from the FH version giving it a little bit of a bite as compared to the simple (but effective) cinnamon sugar on the other. But of course, one opinion is not enough. I tested my pumpkin muffins on my partner, his brother, and my parents. The brothers emphatically agreed that the Food Hussy ones were better, saying they tasted like something called sunshine bread that they’d had as children. My mother agreed with them, and my father was the lone dissenting voice, preferring the Pioneer Woman muffins.

So a craving on a random night turned into what felt like a cute, fall project: recipe research, several hours spent in the kitchen, and the best part, taste testing and sharing with others. And now it’s even turned into a blog post!

I use this blog more as a public diary than as a platform for advice, but I will say for anyone who thinks they can’t bake or is intimidated by the task: it’s truly not hard, especially when following simple box instructions. I always get compliments on my brownies; I use a box mix (though they’re next on my list to make from scratch). I received great accolades for my focaccia, as many people see baking bread as an arduous, finicky task, when it was basically just throwing four ingredients into a bowl and leaving it in the fridge to rise for 24 hours. And after spending an hour researching muffin recipes, picking two decidedly different ones, and the results tasting pretty much the same to me, I can even say it doesn’t matter all that much which version you use. At least not for us normies. I’m sure there’s a professional out there somewhere who would disagree with me. But people like my baking. And who am I to argue with the people?