Thursday, October 29, 2009

Sugar-Free Pumpkin Spice Muffins

I have been wanting to try a new sugar-free recipe, that doesn't use any butter and only whole-wheat flour. I took a few recipe's and modified them and this is what I came up with:

Ingredients:
1 2/3 cup whole-wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon pumpkin spice
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup canned pumpkin
1/4 cup applesauce
2 beaten eggs
1/3 cup splenda
1/4 cup low-fat milk (you can also use whole or reduced fat milk)
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 teaspoon of orange extract
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
1/2 walnuts (or chocolate chips)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a large bowl mix together the following dry ingredients: whole-wheat flour, baking powder, pumpkin spice, nutmeg, splenda and salt.

In a separate large bowl mix together all of the wet ingredients: pumpkin, applesauce, low-fat milk, and vegetable oil.

Combine both mixtures together, and once smooth, start to fold in the walnuts

Bake at 350 degrees for 20 - 25 minutes.

Results:
I ended up baking for 25 minutes. Right out of the oven, the muffin's were still a bit gooey (but cooked) soft inside. After letting them cool a bit, they were still soft inside, not a cake-like density, but a bit thicker.

Not as much flavor as I expected or wanted, but they were decent none-the-less. I will still eat 'em up!

To help with the flavor I made a sugar-free pumpkin spice cream-cheese topping. Recipe to come soon! :)

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Pumpkin Spice Pick-Me-Up Coffee

One of my roommates years ago taught me a trick to add some flavor to my morning coffee by adding a little bit of cinnamon while it's brewing...sooo good!

So on many occasions, when I am prepping my morning coffee the night before, I put from a teaspoon to a tablespoon of pumpkin pie spice in the filter before adding the coffee grinds. It's a nice little hint of flavor.

[Pictures to Come]

If I want to add some more flavor, I add vanilla flavored Torani syrup! They also have a sugar free version.

Yum!

Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Pumpkin Spice Kisses

It's finally here! I have been hemming and hawing over starting a blog about ALL things pumpkin and after picking up a bag of Hershey's Pumpkin Spice Flavored Kisses, I figured it was about time to get going!

I was very excited a year ago when I was browsing Target and came across these pumpkin spice flavored Hershey's Kisses! They are absolutely delicious and did not disappoint me one bit. They are very rich and have a soft center. I also discovered the Candy Corn Flavored Kisses. Those were quite good too and tasted like butter cream. (My second favorite flavor, next to pumpkin).

[picture's to come]

Both have had mixed reviews...Have you tried them? What do you think?