Spiced Butternut Squash Muffins

This recipe I found online from Taste of Home.  I had to use these cute little butternut squashes!  It was a drizzly raining day and didn’t go out so this was a fun thing to make on a day like today.  The only thing I changed was I used maple syrup instead of light corn syrup.  I also doubled the recipe but only made one recipe of the topping.  It started to clump together so I added oatmeal and flour to dry it out and make it crumble again.  I got these cute Halloween muffin cups from Flying Tiger, this Danish Ikea type store here.  It was cool that I didn’t need a muffin pan!  These were dense and moist with a good butternut squash flavor that didn’t get lost with everything else.  The topping was good, too.  Also, some of the brown sugar didn’t quite mix into the dry ingredient very well so there were little brown sugar chunks in the batter that I thought was going to be a problem but actually turned out to be a delicious surprise!

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Ingredients
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
2 eggs, lightly beaten
3/4 cup mashed cooked butternut squash
3/4 cup light corn syrup
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup canola oil
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
TOPPING:
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
4 teaspoons cold butter
Directions
1. In a large bowl, combine the first seven ingredients. In another bowl, combine the eggs, squash, corn syrup, butter, oil and vanilla; stir into dry ingredients just until moistened.
2. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups three-fourth full. In a small bowl, combine brown sugar and cinnamon; cut in butter until crumbly. Sprinkle over batter.
3. Bake at 400° for 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean. Cool for 5 minutes before removing from pan to a wire rack. Serve warm. Yield: 1 dozen.

TOTAL TIME: Prep: 20 min. Bake: 15 min.YIELD:12 servings

I included these nutritional facts since they came with the recipe.  It’s good to know that each of these is about 300 calories and worth it!

Nutritional Facts
1 serving (1 each) equals 296 calories, 11 g fat (4 g saturated fat), 49 mg cholesterol, 259 mg sodium, 48 g carbohydrate, 1 g fiber, 3 g protein.