#Halloween Pumpkin-Carrot Muffins from @MaddieDayAuthor plus #GIVEAWAY

MADDIE here, with Halloween muffins! 

I realize they don't have jack-o-lantern faces or scary spiders painted on. But sometimes you want a tasty pumpkin-flavored muffin while you're carving that pumpkin or hanging your big scary spiders over the front door. I consider this recipe my public service for the week!

Plus, pumpkin flesh is readily available this time of year, whether fresh or canned, as are plump local carrots. These are moist, sweet muffins, which you can enjoy plain or split and spread with butter or cream cheese.

Pumpkin Carrot Muffins

Ingredients

(Baking powder omitted from photo)

1 3/4 cup flour (use whole wheat to increase health benefits)

1 teaspoon baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 tablespoon cinnamon

½ teaspoon ground cloves

½ teaspoon salt

1 ⅓ cup pumpkin

1 cup carrot, shredded

½ cup sugar

¼ cup brown sugar

⅓ c softened butter

½ cup milk

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Grease a standard muffin tin. Mix dry ingredients in large measuring cup.

Cream butter and sugars.  

Beat in eggs one at a time. Add vanilla and milk. Beat in pumpkin.

Fold in dry ingredients and carrot and mix until barely incorporated.

Spoon into prepared muffin tin.

Bake about twenty-five minutes or until lightly browned. Let cool in the pan.

Enjoy!

Readers: what's your favorite way - other than in pie - to eat pumpkin? Or your favorite muffin? I have one more ARC of Murder at the Lobstah Shack to give away to one commenter!

My most recent release is Country Store Mystery #9. No Grater Crime came out in August!

Murder at the Lobstah Shack, the third Cozy Capers Book Group Mystery, is up for preorder and releases at the end of November.

The next up is Batter Off Dead, Country Store Mystery #10, to release in February 2022.

We hope you'll visit Maddie and her Agatha Award-winning alter ego Edith Maxwell on our web site, sign up for our monthly newsletter, visit us on social media, and check our all our books and short stories.

Maddie Day (aka Edith Maxwell) is a talented amateur chef and holds a PhD in Linguistics from Indiana University. An Agatha Award-winning and bestselling author, she is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America and also writes award-winning short crime fiction. She lives with her beau north of Boston, where she’s currently working on her next mystery when she isn’t cooking up something delectable in the kitchen.