Mini Mondays Fall Edition: Pumpkin Bread

Fall is my favorite time of year.  Cool weather, sweaters, boots, football, apples and pumpkin everything: pumpkin pasta, pumpkin candles, pumpkin bread, pumpkin spice lattes. I love it all.  

This is just for the lolz.  

The thought of fall is the only thing that gets me through the miserable summer months in Texas.  Even though in Texas fall really means 80 degree weather, which is still hot to really be fall, it's still better than 100 plus degrees every day so I'll take what I can get.  So in honor of the first Mini Monday of Fall, I present to you mini pumpkin muffins. 

Mini Pumpkin Muffins

What you need:

Pumpkin Muffins

2/3 cup canned pumpkin

1 egg

1/3 cup vegetable oil

1/4 cup water

1 cup sugar

1 1/4 cup flour

3/4 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1/4 tsp cinnamon

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/8 tsp ground cloves

1/8 tsp ground ginger

Mini bundt pan (If you don't have one you can use a muffin pan, they just won't look like little pumpkins when they're done.)

Caramel

Cream Cheese Glaze

4 oz cream cheese

2 T honey

2 T milk

What you do:

Mix together the wet ingredients: pumpkin, vegetable oil, water and sugar.  

Add in the dry ingredients and mix well.  Fill the mini bundt pans about 2/3 of the way full.  Bake at 350* for 15 minutes. 

They should look like this when they're done.  These are totally adorable, and delicious just as they are. However, we are about to bump the adorableness up to an extreme level.  Just sayin'.  

So, let the muffins cool (I let mine cool overnight, but a couple hours should be fine).  Slice the rounded top off each muffin.  Make the cream cheese glaze by mixing together the cream cheese, milk and honey.  Stir in some red and yellow food coloring to make it orange.  Put the flat sides of each muffin together so that they look like little tiny, tiny pumpkins.  Take some caramel and form them into little stems and leaves.  Drizzle some of the glaze on the top of each little pumpkin, then put a stem and two leaves on top of each.     

I use this recipe to make pumpkin bread ALL the time (just bake it for 50 minutes if you're making a loaf instead of mufins) and it's always a big hit.  Usually I double it and eat one loaf right away and slice up the other one and freeze each piece individually.  I don't generally make any type of glaze or icing either, and it tastes just as delicious without it.  I hope you that when you make these you enjoy them as much as I did.    

Happy Fall Y'all!