pumpkin yumkins.

And so the pumpkin begins.

Is there anyone out there who’s not totally obsessed with this stuff? Anyone? Didn’t think so.

Right now, my kitchen is in pumpkin overdrive. I’ve got pumpkin spice lattes brewing in my Crock-Pot, and an oven full of streusel-topped pumpkin bread and muffins.

I know you must be excited… But that’s for another time.

Today, we discuss the Pastry Queen’s Pumpkin Yumkins. She describes them as a mix between a muffin and a cupcake, but for me, they’re just straight-up muffins. Muffins topped with some straight-up delicious icing.

The recipe calls for chopped dates and pecans to be stirred into the batter before baking, and wouldn’t you know! I didn’t have either of those on hand. But I did have some walnuts and some raisins, so I used those instead.

I wasn’t sure how I’d feel about it, so I made half the batch with the raisins and walnuts, and half without. The with batch was definitely the winner.

Wondering what kind of icing these muffins have going on? It’s cream cheese frosting with a tiny bit of orange juice and lots of zest. The pictures show what it looked like when I first iced them, but if you wait a while the icing sets and hardens. I thought it was a little too orangey and it sorta overpowered the pumpkin in the muffins.

Even so, orange + cream cheese + pumpkin is definitely a powerful combo. These muffins are great for breakfast, and they do keep for days. I think they’d be great to have for brunch around Thanksgiving. Because, you know, there’s obviously not enough pumpkin going on already at that time.

There’s always room for pumpkin, right?

Thanks, Amanda, for choosing the first pumpkin recipe of Project Pastry Queen! Be sure to head over to her blog for the full recipe.