Pumpkin Oat Muffins

This is not my usual type of recipe. Be forewarned: there is sugar and white flour! I'm not going to pretend this recipe is "healthy" although it does contain pumpkin, applesauce, and rolled oats. The thing it has going for it is: this is an easy, quick recipe you can throw together.

I found the original version in Home Cooking the Costco Way. I love this cookbook because there is a color photo of every single recipe. The recipes are unusual and interesting, too. Some are super simple, some a bit more complicated. This muffin recipe calls for a box of angel food cake mix.

Since we no longer have a Costco membership, I purchased my angel food cake mix, pumpkin puree, and applesauce at Aldi. While the original recipe called for Kirkland Pecan Spice Cereal, I substituted rolled oats. If you have pumpkin pie spice on hand, you can add 2 TB of this instead of the individual spices. I used cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and allspice to create my own blend.

Ingredients:

15 oz. can pumpkin
1/2 cup applesauce (unsweetened)
1 cup water
16 oz. box angel food cake mix
2 TB pumpkin pie spice (or mix your own blend of cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, etc.)
2 cups rolled oats
1/4 cup pecan pieces

Preheat oven to 350F. Spray muffin tin with cooking spray.

In a large bowl, combine pumpkin, applesauce and water. Add dry ingredients, except pecans. Stir to combine. Fill muffins tins and top with pecan pieces. Bake for 35-45 minutes or until tops spring back when poked gently. Let muffins cool. Makes 12 large muffins or 24 mini muffins.