Whether it is the holiday season or not, these little muffins will add just enough nice spice to make your day!  

I had some pumpkin left from Thanksgiving goodness, so I wondered about how best to use it…and since I’m preferring to go more and more Vegan, this mini-muffin-madness happened. So cute with their little muffin tops that will melt in your mouth!

They make the perfect on the go snack of shareable morsels for a get-together.  So, let’s get this recipe sharing going!

INGREDIENTS:

• 1.5 cups of pumpkin puree
• 3 Tbsp freshly ground flax seeds mixed into double the amount of water
• 1/2 small ripe banana
• 1.5 cups of golden monkfruit (I use Lakanto)
• 1 cup finely ground almond flour with no skin
• 1.5 cups of gluten-free old fashioned oats
• 2 cups of whole grain buckwheat flour
• 1/3 cup coconut nectar syrup
• 1/3 cup extra virgin unfiltered organic olive oil or grapeseed oil
• 4 tsp baking soda
• 2 tsp Ceylon cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp Himalayan pink salt
• 1 Tbsp pumpkin pie spice
• dash of ground ginger
• choice of vanilla extract or paste
• fun topping option: figs or dates, and nuts…maybe chocolate!?

  WHAT TO DO:

1. Line muffin pans with paper lining or spray to keep from sticking
2. Preheat oven to 350 degrees and mix up flax egg
3. Add mashed banana, flax egg, pumpkin puree, monkfruit, vanilla paste, coconut nectar, olive oil in mixer bowl and blend a bit
4. Sift together all the rest of the dry ingredients until evenly distributed
5. Mix wet and dry ingredients together until batter is thick and well combined.
6. FUN OPTION–chop up remoistened Turkish figs, nuts of choice like pecans and walnuts and stir with coconut oil and couple spoonfuls of the batter. Then mix little dollops of it on each muffin.  You can even do chocolate, but avoid the sugar if possible!
7. this will make about 36 mini muffins, so there’s lots to go around after you bake them for 17 minutes.
8. Test for doneness with a slim chopstick and let cool before boxing up or devouring.
   

   batter with optional fruit and nut top

   

   perfect texture!