Use what you have

Friends. You know me by now, right? Then you'll know how I like to try to use what I have on hand. I grew some acorn squash this past growing season. Alright, alright. I didn't actually plant them! They were volunteers but I still grew them. LOL. I think I only ended up with about 6 or 7 of them from one plant. And when I came to TN I decided to bring them with me. Otherwise they would just sit in the pantry and rot. Anyway, I made soup and roasted some. But then I saw a recipe for butternut squash muffins and had everything on hand except the butternut squash. BUT what I did have was acorn squash. So I made muffins using the leftover aforementioned roast acorn squash. And I wanted to share the recipe with you.

The Recipe

The Recipe: Butternut Spice Muffins
Adapted from Sugarhouse Workshop

Ingredients:
2 2/3 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
3/4 teaspoon sea salt
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
pinch of ground cloves
1 1/2 sticks unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup plain yogurt
3/4 cup roasted, mashed acorn squash (or butternut squash)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon cinnamon extract (or vanilla extract)

Instructions:
1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease a 6-cup muffin tin (or 12-cup muffin tin)
2. In a large bowl, combine all dry ingredients and whisk together.
3. Slice butter into pats and add to the dry mixture. Using your fingers, work the butter into the dry mixture until no large chunks remain and the mixture resembles a coarse meal.
4. In the bowl of your mixer, whisk the yogurt, squash, eggs, and extract together.
5. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients a little at a time and mix together until fully combined.
6. Scoop the batter evenly into the prepared muffin tin, filly until nearly full.
7. Bake for 22-25 minutes until a knife inserted comes out clean and the tops are golden brown.

The Results

Honestly, they were dry. I was so disappointed! As I was making the muffins I thought 'they could really use some applesauce' but I didn't add any in. I think I should have. I don't think that my using a different squash nor a different size muffin tin should have affected them and made them dry. But they were. I would add more spice next time. But really, I'm not going to make them again. I have a recipe for a really good spice cake. If I decide to make spice muffins in the future, I'll just make the cake but use a muffin tin instead of a cake tin.

'til next time
-k
xoxo