TWD: Pumpkin Muffins

It's October! So it's time for another pumpkin recipe. This week's Tuesdays with Dorie is from Kelly at Sounding My Barbaric Gulp. She chose for us to make the Pumpkin Muffins from Baking: From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. These muffins are very tender and moist with a cake-like texture. You can find the original recipe here. I made the following changes to the recipe to mix it up a bit (and also because I had these ingredients on hand).

• I omitted the salt in the recipe and used salted butter instead.
• I substituted dried cranberries for the raisins in the recipe.
• I omitted the pecans.
• I added the zest of one orange to the batter.
• I made a simple glaze of orange juice and powder sugar for the top of the muffins (1/2 cup powdered sugar and 1 tablespoon orange juice).
• I substituted the sunflower seed topping with sliced almonds, which I sprinkled on top of the orange glaze.
• The baking time in the book says approximately 25 minutes.  My muffins were done in about 18 minutes, so be sure to watch them closely.

Notes: I really liked the flavor of these muffins. The pumpkin flavor isn't very prominent, but it is definitely there. The cranberries add a tart contrast to the sweet muffins, and the orange zest in the batter smells and tastes great. The muffins are definitely sweet enough on their own, and the glaze is not needed, but it is a nice touch. I only used a small amount of glaze on each muffin, spread in a thin layer, as to not make the muffins too sweet. I will definitely make these again. I would like to make a couple of different versions of this muffins. The original recipe calls for raisins, which would be nice, but I would also like to try dried cherries or chocolate chips as well.