Pumpkin Spice Muffins *melissa

I had a Halloween costume party to attend and decided to make these muffins to bring along. (I'll spare you the picture of me in my lame pirate costume.) I got this recipe from The Pioneer Woman who titled the recipe Moist Pumpkin Spice Muffins. Now, out of respect for my other two sisters and anyone else who finds an inherent creepiness in the word moist I have left it out of the title. I refer you to the synonyms given in the thesaurus for the word moist: clammy, damp, dampish, dank, dewy, dripping, drippy, drizzly, humid, irriguous, muggy, not dry, oozy, rainy, soggy, teary, watery. Now really, only one of these applies to these lovely muffins. (I mean no offense to The Pioneer Woman, after all, these muffins are in no way, shape or form dry.) Can we please find a new word to replace moist? There I go again, I promise it's the last time I'll use the word in this post. Forgive me! OK - on to the recipe! 

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons butter, cut into pieces
1 heaping cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup evaporated milk
1 egg
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
1/2 cup golden raisins (optional!)
2 tablespoons sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Generously grease 12 muffin tins.

Sift all dry ingredients into large bowl...

(I have to confess that when I received this tool as a wedding gift I didn't really know what it was used for. It really comes in handy for recipes like this.)

Then take the chilled butter and cut it into little cubes...

and use a pastry cutter to cut it into the mixture...(another tool I didn't know what to do with--the pastry cutter. All I knew about this tool was that as a kid I used it to make cool shapes in play dough.)

In a separate bowl measure out the pumpkin puree and add the evaporated milk.....

...add the egg and vanilla

(This picture brings me back to Professor Wingert's Drawing I class where we had a week's worth of drawing eggs in juxtaposition to one another....it's amazing what a little graphite on paper can capture.)

 Stir until incorporated then add the mixture to the dry ingredients, gently fold in....

.....fold in the golden raisins

Then Spoon batter into muffin tins and sprinkle tops with cinnamon sugar...then bake for 25 minutes.

If you like pumpkin, cinnamony goodness, and plump raisins, you'll LOVE these muffins.