Hold on to your hats ladies (and gents)…this is the second of 6 new recipes for absolutely moist, oh so delicious, and ridiculously low point indulgent treats.
p.s. after I had already scheduled this recipe to post my hubby called and said “I ate one of those half muffin things you had sitting on that blue plate”. I asked which one and after a painful question and answer session he was able to identify it as this one Espresso Pumpkin that is posting soon. He loved it!
I got left alone on a dreary rainy and downright gloomy Friday night. It had been raining all day long. Rain on a Friday means a slow granite showroom and boy was it slow. Even though there was plenty of paperwork to do it’s just tough to concentrate (and not take a nap) when it’s that kind of dreary outside, know what I mean? And it was an even more gray drive home to an empty house so I had no thoughts or desires to cook any food. Any real food anyway. My daughter had just left a new book on my pillow the night before and I thought hey, there is no harm in changing into pj’s, making hot tea and just reading when I get home right? Ok, so it will be 7pm but no one is there to stop me. The dogs were more than willing to join me in the jammie, tea, book idea so it became a plan of action. I was going to make a batch of my World’s Easiest Cream Corn Muffins, the hot tea and settle in. But while I was pilfering the pantry I saw a box of yellow cake mix that I had been planning on using for some of those 3 ingredient WW muffins with pumpkin you always see floating around. I could eat those for dinner…they have pumpkin in them so that’s a veggie…or a fruit…or something I could count as real food anyway. And I had a can of pumpkin, and the goodies I had carried home in my backpack the other night, and no witnesses were home to see that I was eating muffins for dinner. The dogs agreed it was a brilliant idea, and the cats said they would keep quiet if I gave them some of the milk from my tea.
Espresso Pumpkin Muffins – 3 Points Plus per serving (6 servings)
Ingredients:
- slightly less than 1 cup of any brand yellow cake mix
- 1/4 of a can of pumpkin (just pumpkin, not pumpkin pie filling)
- 1/4 cup of water
- 1 packet of Cafe Bustelo Instant Espresso (about a tbsp)
- optional 1 tbsp coconut sugar
- 12 Dark Chocolate Covered Coffee Beans
Line 6 regular size muffin tins with paper muffin liners and set aside. Preheat oven to 350 while you mix ingredients. In a medium size mixing bowl with a spout use a fork to mix cake mix, pumpkin, water and instant espresso thoroughly but don’t worry about small lumps. Batter should be thin enough to drop easily into the muffin cups with just a little nudge from your fork but not so thin that it runs in by itself. Add the mixture evenly into the 6 muffin cups. Bake on 350 for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean. Remove from oven and allow to cool for at least 5 minutes so that the muffin will “set” before you try to remove them from the pan. Top each one with two dark chocolate covered espresso beans. If you are going to freeze any of these (as if they will last that long) allow them to cool completely or they will form ice crystals. Should keep in freezer well for up to 2 weeks.
Have your tea ready because you’re going to want to eat these immediately once you smell them! Let me know what others you come up with or try these:
- Pumpkin Spice Muffins
- Snickers Pumpkin Muffins
- Butterfinger Pumpkin Muffins
- Chocolate and Coconut Pumpkin Muffins
- Cherry Lemon Pumpkin Muffins
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