I can’t believe #PumpkinWeek is almost over! Have you been checking out this huge group of bloggers sharing all things pumpkin this week? At the bottom of this post I have included what everyone has been up to for some solid Fall inspiration. I decided to use the vegan pumpkin butter I made to stuff the crepes and use that as the base for come delicious vegan pumpkin muffins. These muffins are super easy, and I should know, because baking is not a strength of mine and these turned out great every time I made them. I included vegan cream cheese to top them with, but they are also great plain or toasted with vegan butter. Keep reading if you want something with real pumpkin and a hit of that ‘ol fashioned pumpkin pie spice in your life.
How To Make Vegan Pumpkin Muffins
To start, you are going to add all your dry ingredients to one bowl and all your wet to another. When adding the wet ingredients, first mash the banana until it’s pretty smashed up. It’s best to use a fully ripe banana. Then add your pumpkin butter and mix together fully before adding the rest of the wet ingredients. If you don’t have pumpkin butter, can you can use pumpkin puree (canned pumpkin) on the stovetop and reduce with spices and sweeter. I baked some pumpkin to make a puree, which I turned into pumpkin butter.
Once the dry ingredients are mixed in the separate bowl fully, you can marry the mixes to create the batter.
As I mentioned, this is a simple enough process, my seven-year-old helped a ton in both the making and eating of these pumpkin treats.
One spoon full in each muffin compartment is about enough to make one medium muffin. We added an extra sprinkle of natural sugar on top before baking for texture and sweetness.
So let’s get you started on making your own at home. It’s going to be messy, but it’s going to be worth it.
Once mixed and poured into your muffin tins, bake at 350 F for 10 minutes, then rotate your pan and bake at 250 F for another 10. If adding the cream cheese topping, add a dollop of vegan cream cheese before when you rotate the pan and bake for an additional 10 minutes.
Some things about the vegan pumpkin butter and vegan cream cheese. When I make these muffins, I make extra pumpkin butter (to use with vegan crepes, add to coffee, add to toast, etc) and extra vegan sweet cream cheese (to use as a pie topper or when i need to add a wet element to a sweet treat). It’s worths making extra, even if you only dip berries into it, it’s just so good!
I know it’s best to have a high-speed blender to make the very best “cream” from cashews, but being a bit limited in my cooking supplies, I have learned some patience and blending and blending and blending will lead to a favorable consistency. I like to boil water in my kettle and pour that over a bowl of raw cashews and let soak for about 30 minutes. After I drain that, I blend with very little water to start on low and build up to the highest setting adding a rotation of water and lemon juice by the spoonful.
You can see I get a pretty nice creamy consistency from just a typical blender. Don’t give up! It can take up to 10 minutes to reach this level of creamy.
Eat warm or save for toasting! Eat with leftover pumpkin butter, vegan butter, or even leftover vegan cream cheese.
This recipe makes a lot, and you don’t need any really hard to find ingredients to get started. I think you are ready to start! Let me know how you enjoyed this recipe and if you have any questions!
Vegan Pumpkin Muffins with Cream Cheese
Easy, healthy, delicious breakfast muffins.
Ingredients
Vegan Muffins
- 1 cup pumpkin butter
- 1 cup flour
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 1 banana
- 2 tbsp oat milk
- 2 tsp vanilla
- 2 tsp apple cider vinegar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/2 tsp salt baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt baking powder
- 14 tsp cinnamon
- raw sugar for sprinkling
Vegan Cream Cheese
- 1.5 cups of raw cashews
- 1 cup boiling water
- 1 lemon
- 12 cup powdered sugar
- a little extra filtered water
Instructions
Make the Vegan Muffins
- Mix together all wet ingredients in one bowl, when mixing the wet ingredients, smash the banana first and then mix in the pumpkin butter, then add the rest of the wet ingredients.
- In another bowl, mix together all the dry ingredients.
- *If using fresh pumpkin: you can easily use fresh pumpkin but cubing and baking it for about an hour until about to caramelize. make sure to smash with a fork then reduce with spices and sweeter to make a pumpkin butter.
- Combine the wet and dry ingredient, until fully blended.
- With a large spoon, spoon the mixture into a lined pumpkin tin, then sprinkle each muffin with a pinch or raw sugar.
Make the cream cheese:
- Boil water and pour that over a bowl of raw cashews and let soak for about 30 minutes.
- Drain the water from the cashews
- Blend with very little water to start on low and build up to the highest setting adding a rotation of water and lemon juice by the spoonful until all the lemon juice from 1 lemon is used. This can be done without a high speed blender.
Bake the muffins:
- Bake the muffins at 350 F for 10 minutes and then rotate. If adding cream cheese dollops to the muffins, add a teaspoon of cream cheese atop the muffin, rotate, and then lower temp to 250 F and bake for about 5 more minutes or until the cream cheese is set and slightly brown.
- Let cool slightly.