Ingredients
Equipment
Method
Preheat the oven.
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Line a muffin pan with paper liners or lightly grease the wells.
Make the crumb topping.
- Combine the flour, sugar and pumpkin pie spice in a small bowl. Pour in the melted butter and mix until you have a crumbly mixture with plenty of little clumps. Set aside.
Mix the wet ingredients.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the pumpkin purée, eggs, avocado oil, brown sugar, maple syrup, applesauce and vanilla until combined.
Add the dry ingredients.
- Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and pumpkin pie spice. Gently fold everything together just until you don't see any more dry flour. Don't overmix. Just like with the pumpkin bread, too much mixing can give you tougher muffins instead of that soft, tender texture we're after.
Fill the muffin pan.
- Divide the batter between the prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle the crumb mixture generously over each muffin.
Bake.
- Bake at 350°F for approximately 25 minutes, or until the muffins are risen and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs.
Cool.
- Let the muffins cool in the pan for about 5–10 minutes before transferring them to a wire rack.
Notes
Pumpkin: Homemade or canned both work. If using canned pumpkin, make sure you're buying pure pumpkin purée—not pumpkin pie filling. Pumpkin should be the only ingredient.
Pumpkin spice: I use my homemade pumpkin pie spice blend, but store-bought works perfectly too.
Don't overmix: Once the flour goes in, mix only until everything comes together. Overmixing encourages gluten development and can make muffins tougher instead of soft and tender.
Crumb topping: Don't pulverize the topping into fine crumbs. I like leaving some larger buttery clumps because those are arguably the best part.
Homemade pumpkin purée: Homemade purée can vary quite a bit in moisture. If yours is noticeably watery compared with canned pumpkin, let some of the excess liquid drain before measuring.