I love making pumpkin desserts for Maya’s birthday.  I mean, it’s October, so…duh?  🙂  I have tried something new every year, and this year was no different.  These are in truth a muffin, but I call them muffin cakes to make Maya happy 😉

I adapted the Grain Free Coconut Flour Pumpkin Muffins from leelaLicious, (basically I used some dates to sweeten it and omitted the nuts) and then added an adapted version of Paleo Fondue’s Pumpkin Pie Frosting.  I didn’t have Arrowroot starch nor did I want to use sugar, so I added some dates and Pure Maple Syrup thinking that would thicken/sweeten it up.  Plus, it was what I used to sweeten the muffins, so I thought it would meld well for the recipe as a whole 🙂  The only reason I didn’t use her recipe for the muffins is that I didn’t have some of the ingredients haha.  Do you ever do that?  Google a recipe and insert what ingredients you actually have?  Maybe that’s just me being lazy and not wanting to go to the store.  But really, running to the store for one or two things is RARELY an option with a toddler.  You deal with what you have! 🙂  And that is how I found leelaLicious.  She made a muffin with almost exactly what I had on hand, and it looked delicious-WIN!

I actually made these as mini muffin cakes for Maya’s birthday celebration at preschool.  They were such a hit at home with the teenage boys, that I decided to make them as their full size version for Maya’s actual birthday.  Anyway, enough dialogue… Here’s a few pictures of the finished product 🙂

Ingredients for Muffins (Makes 12)

• 1/2 cup coconut flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon allspice
• Could also use pumpkin pie spice instead of all the above 🙂
• pinch of salt
• 4 eggs (room temperature)
• 2/3 cup pumpkin puree
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup coconut oil
• 3 tablespoons Organic Pure Maple Syrup
• 4 Medjul Dates

Directions for Muffins

1. Preheat the oven to 400 F. Grease or line a muffin pan.
2. In a medium bowl whisk together coconut flour, baking powder and soda and spices. In a large bowl whisk together remaining (wet) ingredients
3. Add the flour mix to the wet mixture and stir until all lumps are gone.
4. (Time Saving Tip) I actually just dumped everything into a food processor and that worked too 😉  The batter will be pretty thick-almost like a cookie dough.  Don’t think it should be like your typical muffin batter.
5. Pour batter into muffin pan and bake for 23 – 25 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Ingredients for Frosting

• 1 cup Coconut Oil (I didn’t have liquid coconut oil as the original recipe called for, but as long as your pumpkin puree is room temperature it worked!  I attempted to melt the coconut oil on my first try and then my cold pumpkin puree made it all clumpy.  Redid it with room temp pumpkin and voila!)
• 4 Medjul Dates
• 1½ cup of Pumpkin Puree
• 4 Tablespoons Pure Organic Maple Syrup
• ½ teaspoon of Vanilla Extract
• ¼ teaspoon of Cinnamon
• ¼ teaspoon of Nutmeg
• Pinch of Salt

Directions for Frosting

• Make sure everything is room temperature.  If your pumpkin puree is cold it will make the coconut oil hard and clumpy.
• Dump everything into a food processor and blend until creamy and smooth.
• Scoop into pastry bag or you can use a ziploc bag with the tip cut off.  Squeeze onto muffins.  The frosting is a little liquidy.  Either eat them right away or refrigerate to harden it up.  Both times that I made these, I made them the day before and refrigerated them over night.  The frosting gets pretty solid, but if you let them sit out for an hour they are perfect!

ENJOY!