Red Velvet Pumpkin Muffins

This weekend, I felt inspired to BAKE!

You can’t have a blog called “No Thanks to Cake” and not have a tendency towards saying “Yes Please” to cake…

Truth be told:  I love cake.  I love cookies.  And… I die for Red Velvet.

But, since I’ve started my healthy living journey, I’ve had to really think about when I want to say “Yes Please” and choose other moments when I say no.

One of the keys to having your cake and eating it too is to come up with healthier alternatives to your favorites, which is what I do best here at NTTC.

Today’s recipe is a twist on a Hungry Girl recipe I tried years ago… pumpkin + cake mix = amazing muffins!  Now, considering that it’s Valentine’s week, I decided to make a beautiful red velvet version of this recipe.  I hope you love it as much as I do.

Red Velvet Pumpkin Muffins

Adapted from Hungry Girl

Serves 12

INGREDIENTS

1 15-ounce can pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix)

1 box Red Velvet cake mix

cooking spray

 INSTRUCTIONS

1.  Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.  Empty your can of pumpkin into a large bowl.

2.  Add cake mix and combine with a hand mixer.  Note:  The batter will be EXTREMELY thick.  You will be tempted to add water. DON’T!  Just go with it… trust me!

3.  Spray a muffin pan with cooking spray and add your batter to the muffin pan, splitting it evenly between the 12 compartments.

Remember, I said the batter would be thick…

4.  OPTIONAL STEP:  This batter cooks a little differently.  Those peaks you see below won’t flatten out, instead they’ll just cook into that shape, like little mountains.

You can make your muffins prettier by smoothing out the tops of the muffins before you bake them.  I do this with the back of a teaspoon.  Run your teaspoon under hot water, and then use it to smooth down the tops of the muffin.  You’ll have to run your spoon under hot water after every second muffins smoothing.  In the end, your muffins “batter” will look like this.

5.  Bake your muffins at 400 degrees for 20 minutes, and behold the beautiful muffins you will have created…

They’re SO pretty!!!!

And they taste JUST as delicious as they look.  Because they’re made with pumpkin, the muffin is quite dense (they actually feel heavy!) and filling as a result.  You’re not going to be disappointed, I promise!  I’ve also used this same recipe with different cake mixes:  Spice Cake and Devil’s Food Cake mixes also make rockin’ muffins… experiment with other flavors, too!

Per 1 muffin serving:

CAL 192; FAT 3g; SAT FAT 1g; CARB 37g; FIB 1g; PROT 2g; SUG 31g

WW Points+: 5; WW Freestyle Smart Points: 6