Iced Pumpkin Muffins

Fall is my favorite season ever! It's the Goldilocks of seasons, not too hot and not too cold, plus we get all those beautiful golden leaves everywhere. It's also the start of the holidays and with that comes holiday food. Pumpkin, apple, cinnamon, oh my!

I decided to make these Hungry Girl muffins because I had a can of pure pumpkin lying around and too much time on my hands. You can probably start finding canned pure pumpkin now, I bought mine last year at Walmart and they're still good. Don't confuse them with pumpkin pie filling though! They're actual pumpkin, mashed up and without anything else added to them. I also saw these adorable muffin liners at Target for $1 so they needed to be used RIGHT AWAY. Here's the recipe:

Slightly adjusted from the Hungry Girl website

Ingredients:

Muffins

-1 cup Fiber One Original bran cereal 

-1 1/2 cups whole-wheat flour

-1/2 cup granulated Stevia In The Raw (you can use sugar if you'd like, the calories will just be a little higher)

-1/4 cup brown sugar (not packed)

-1 tbsp. baking powder

-2 tsp. cinnamon

-1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice

-1/4 tsp. salt

-One 15-oz. can pure pumpkin

-1 cup club soda 

-1/2 cup fat-free liquid egg substitute (like Egg Beaters Original)

-1/4 cup sugar-free pancake syrup

-1 tsp. vanilla extract

-1/4 cup raisins, chopped

Icing

-1/2 cup powdered sugar
-1 tablespoon milk or water
-1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Directions:

-Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line 10 cups of a 12-cup muffin pan with baking cups and/or spray with nonstick spray. Set aside.

-Using a blender or food processor, grind cereal to a breadcrumb-like consistency. Transfer crumbs to a large bowl.
 Add flour, Splenda, brown sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, pumpkin pie spice, and salt. Mix well and set aside.

-In another bowl, combine pumpkin, soda, egg substitute, syrup, and vanilla extract. Mix thoroughly. Add mixture to the large bowl and stir until blended to form the batter. 

-Slowly sprinkle and stir chopped raisins into the batter. Evenly distribute batter among the 10 prepared cups of your muffin pan. (Batter may be piled high... This is OK!) 

-Bake in the oven until muffins are golden brown and a toothpick inserted into the center of one comes out mostly clean, about 30 minutes. Set aside to cool.

-Meanwhile, combine all icing ingredients in a small bowl. Mix until smooth and blended. (Refrigerate icing if you don't plan to serve muffins right away.)

-Remove cooled muffins from the pan. Just before serving, warm icing in the microwave for a few seconds and drizzle it onto the muffins (or simply spread it on evenly). Enjoy!

10 servings: 1 iced muffin each

Nutritional Info: 137 calories, 0.75g fat, 260mg sodium, 32g carbs, 6.75g fiber, 9g sugar, 5.5g protein

Let me know what you think of these!