These are super easy and, while not quote-unquote good for you, not as bad for you as they look. The recipe came from my mom’s coworker; I’m told it was originally a Weight Watchers recipe. I find they freeze and thaw pretty well.
1 box Devils Food or spice cake mix
1 can pumpkin puree
1 cup water (I often swap in coffee, especially with chocolate cake)
1/2-3/4 cup mini chocolate or butterscotch chips (regular size are also okay)
- Preheat oven to 350 F. Spray or grease a muffin or mini-muffin tin.
- Dump the cake mix in a bowl. I often zhuzh it up with some cinnamon (for chocolate) or other spices (for spice cake) here, but that’s extra. Mix in the pumpkin and water. Mix in the chips. I think the idea is that you use chocolate chips with chocolate cake and butterscotch chips with spice cake, but do you. Here’s the chocolate batch I did last night, using a combo of semisweet and dark chocolate chips.
- Transfer batter to the tins. I use a scoop and don’t necessarily pay attention to tin level, but I’d say fill the cups 3/4is full. For example:
- Bake 20-22 minutes for mini muffins, until the tops spring back a little (you can also do the skewer test). Bigger muffins will need a little longer; I think I ended up going 24-25 minutes on these last night. Transfer to a rack. Enjoy.
(If you’re counting, there are four more muffins here than in the pictured pan. I had batter left and didn’t feel like doing a second bake for four muffins, so I used a second pan and baked them all at once.)
I got 16 regular size muffins out of this batch, which would have been about 40 minis. I used closer to 1/2 cup of chips, so more chips would probably make the batter go a little further. Thanks for looking!
Glamour shot for the thumbnail, minus the couple I ate last night
