So, being that I was just in Macedonia for a month, I should probably post another Macedonian recipe… like a recipe for Ajvar, or Ravanija. But there’s time for that. Like next week. When you go away for as long as I did, you kinda start to miss the other stuff. You know… burgers, pancakes, muffins.  You want to attack all of that at once!

Not that they don’t have that stuff out there, they do, but still, it’s different – I like to eat my muffins here, in the U.S. of A.

As soon as we arrived, or about 24 hours after we arrived, I made batches of muffins – blueberry, apple, pumpkin – all things that we had on hand I threw into a muffin batter. By the end of the day I was muffined out, but not before I gave all of them a try.

My favorite were these pumpkin muffins.

I tried these about a year or two ago, thanks to Smitten Kitchen, and completely forgot about them until I saw that canned pumpkin sitting on the counter in my Mom’s kitchen. I attacked that can as if it was Nutella. Never have I been as excited to see a can of pumpkin. Honestly.

If you need a delicious pumpkin muffin recipe, this is it. Hands.Down.

Pumpkin Muffins

You will need:

• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup canned 100% pumpkin
• 1/3 cup vegetable oil
• 2 eggs
• 1 teaspoon pumpkin-pie spice
• 1 1/4 cups plus sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt

For the Topping:

• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 350.
• Line a Texas-sized 6-cup muffin tin with 6 paper liners and spray each liner with a nonstick spray. Or you can use a standard 12-cup muffin tin, but you’ll get about 10 muffins.
• In a medium-sized bowl sift together the flour and the baking powder. Set aside.
• In a large bowl whisk together the pumpkin, oil, eggs, spice, sugar, baking soda, and salt. Whisk until smooth.

• Whisk in the flour mixture until combined. Do not over-mix.
• In a small bowl mix together the sugar and cinnamon.
• Divide the batter evenly among the prepared muffin cups, sprinkling the cinnamon-sugar on top of each muffin.

• Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean.
• Cool for 5 minutes before turning them out onto a cooling rack.