What to cook pumpkin? You, too, are asking this eternal question of gardeners in the autumn season, when from the fields and dachas dozens, bags and full trailers carry the harvest of orange pumpkins!
You can make pumpkin roasts or porridge, bake the pulp with honey - but all these recipes are for the amateur. Everyone knows that pumpkin is useful, but for some reason many people consider it tasteless. And in vain! Indeed, in the orange pulp a lot of beta-carotene, called the “elixir of longevity”! As well as other vitamins and trace elements. Pumpkin dishes are good for immunity (vitamin C), help to keep youth, beautiful hair and skin color (vitamin E); strengthen the heart and bones (potassium and calcium); have a beneficial effect on hemoglobin levels (iron and copper); supply the body with such rare vitamins as T and K.
It is possible to list for a long time, than the red autumn beauty is rich! Therefore, in more detail about all the pumpkin usefulness you can read on our website in a separate article.
A sunny vegetable (although it is more correct to call the fruit “pumpkin”) contains a lot of fiber, but not coarse, but gentle, gently cleansing the body. At the same time, the pumpkin is low-calorie, and it can be eaten as much as you like, while remaining slim. That's what it is, pumpkin! And your homework still does not want to eat pumpkin porridge? Let's make such a dish that everyone will definitely like - pumpkin muffins!
Lush, sweet, sunny, fragrant! These are pumpkin muffins with raisins and spices. Pumpkin gives baking a warm yellow-orange color, and thanks to fragrant spices, it hardly tastes. If your home does not know what the secret ingredient is “hidden” in them, then they won’t guess! But even if you reveal the know-how - even those who do not like pumpkin in other forms, will continue to enjoy cupcakes with pleasure! They are very appetizing. For a cup of hot tea in the autumn evening, these sunny cupcakes will come in handy!
Ingredients for Pumpkin Muffins with Raisins
For 15 cupcakes:
- 200-300 g of fresh pumpkin;
- 200-220 g of flour;
- 2 tbsp. l semolina;
- 10 g baking powder;
- 3 eggs;
- 200 g of sugar;
- 110 ml of refined vegetable oil;
- 100 g raisins.
Cupcakes will be tastier, more aromatic and brighter if you add spices to the dough. You can choose the spices to your taste, and I use this set:
- 1 tbsp. l lemon peel;
- 1/4 tsp. cinnamon;
- Pinch of vanilla;
- 1 / 4h. l ground ginger;
- 1 / 4h. l ground nutmeg;
- 1/3 tsp turmeric;
- A bag of vanilla sugar or vanillin on the tip of a knife.
Turmeric gives the cupcakes an even more intense sunny color, and the rest of the spices have a pleasant aroma. In addition, these supplements are very useful: turmeric strengthens memory, ginger is good for strong immunity, and nutmeg tones and soothes the nerves.
It is very tasty when large, soft, sweet raisins come across in lush cupcakes! And besides raisins, you can add dried apricots, nuts or chocolate chips.
Lemon zest can not be used or replaced by orange. Then your household will decide for sure that the cupcakes are with orange: baking will turn out not only with an orange tinge, but also with a slight hint of citrus. For the baking, the nutmeg pumpkin is perfect, the brightest and sweetest! If you have a different variety, you can also try adding more seasoning for color and flavor. But it is with the bright orange flesh of the nutmeg pumpkin that the most beautiful and tasty pastry is made.
How to make pumpkin muffins with raisins:
First prepare the pumpkin. If you add it to the dough in pieces or grated, you get a completely different taste - a more dense and moist structure. For fluffy and airy dough, you should add pumpkin puree. Therefore, we clean the pumpkin and cut it into 1-1.5 cm cubes, put it into a saucepan, at the bottom of which there is some water, and simmer under the lid on the fire below the average (so as not to burn) to softness, about 7-10 minutes. If the water boils away, pour a little bit; if the pumpkin is ready, and there is liquid on the bottom, we drain the excess. With the help of tolkushki for potatoes or blender make mashed potatoes from the stewed pumpkin and leave to cool.
Prepare the raisins and lemon, rinsing and pouring hot water for 5 minutes - but not boiling water to preserve useful substances. Thanks to the steaming, the lemon peel will lose its bitter taste, and the raisins will become soft. Then rub the zest with a grater (only the upper, yellow layer of the skin is needed). Add some water from raisins (by the way, you can drink it - raisins are good for the heart thanks to the high potassium content).
Prepare the dough. Sift flour into a bowl, mix with baking powder, spices, zest and semolina. A couple of spoons of flour leave.
In a separate container, beat the sugar with the eggs with a mixer until the mass increases in volume and becomes very lush.
Add the beaten eggs to the dry ingredients and mix - gently to maintain fluffiness, in one direction and from the bottom up.
Pour vegetable oil into cooled pumpkin puree and whisk until smooth.
Add the pumpkin mass to the dough and gently mix again.
Pour out the remaining flour, and in it - raisins and mix again.
Spoon the dough in cupcake tins. You can bake in portions or in one large form. Silicone does not need lubrication (with the exception of that used for the first time), and metal forms should be lubricated with vegetable oil; or lubricate with butter and sprinkle decoy.
We bake muffins at 180ºC for about 25-30 minutes. When the tops rise and turn ruddy, and the wooden skewer stays dry, the cupcakes are ready.
Remove them from the molds and lay them on the dish.
Here are some lush, yellow cupcakes! And how wonderful they smell! Invite homemade people to drink tea or cocoa. Now, in the pumpkin season, you will not be wondering what else to cook with a pumpkin - the family will surely ask you to repeat these tasty and healthy cupcakes for an encore!
