Butternut Squash Muffins

This is my first recipe post!

Butternut squash was probably Alexandra's favorite baby food puree. Since it is now back in season (hooray!), I decided to try out some new squash recipes. First, I made homemade butternut squash ravioli. That turned out pretty well. However, what turned out even better were my spiced butternut squash muffins. Who would have thought that squash muffins would be so tastey? They taste sort of like pumpkin bread. Alexandra loves these muffins and has had one with every meal at home since I've made them.

I found a great-looking recipe on-line, but didn't have some of the key ingredients (pumpkin pie spice and butter). Also, I wanted to make the recipe a little healthier by using whole wheat flour. I think it turned out better (and definitely healthier) my way. Note of caution - if you are going to use whole wheat flour and applesauce, do NOT use muffin liners as in the photo. I found that these type of "healthy" muffins stick to paper. At least that's what I told myself when I got sad that mine stuck to the paper.

Here's the recipe:

Ingredients
1/2 cooked butternut squash (I baked mine for 1 hr. at 375 in a casserole dish with a little bit of water in the dish)
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour (I used ½ cup whole wheat flour, 1 cup white flour)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice (I didn’t have pumpkin pie spice, so I used 1 ½ tsp cinnamon, ½ tsp ginger, ¼ tsp nutmeg, 1/8 tsp allspice, 1/8 tsp ground cloves)
3/4 cup milk
1 egg, beaten
1 tablespoon butter, melted (yeah, I had run out of butter and used ¼ cup of applesauce instead)

Directions
· Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C). Lightly grease a 12 cup muffin pan.
· Puree the squash in a food processor.
· In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, white sugar, salt and pumpkin pie spice.
· In a medium bowl, thoroughly mix together milk, egg and butter. Stir in squash. Fold the squash mixture into the flour mixture just until moistened.
· Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin pan, filling cups about 1/2 full. Bake 20 minutes in the preheated oven, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Remove from muffin pan and cool on a wire rack.

Enjoy!