Vegan Pumpkin Breakfast Muffins (One Per Crazy Cookbook Collector Customer: Borders Closing Is Bittersweet)

Aren't these muffins pretty? I decided I'd store them on my kitchen counter under my cake keeper. I love looking at pretty baked things. I know I just finished telling you all, "Oh, the hands of time demand me that I tear myself from my laptop. . . posting less. . . blah, blah, blah"--but being the woman I am (can you say fickle and prone to bouts of deep desire to garden?)--I had to wrestle myself from my yard chores and huddle indoors with a TON of hot beverages these past few days because St. Louis has once again fallen into the "freezing temps" and this has left me sad and stuck indoors baking--the baking is not as sad as is being stuck indoors. *Yesterday the ice-storm-no-one-predicted caused a twenty-six car pile up on a major interstate here. Twenty six cars. Unbelievable. We are prisoners to our weather here.

I have no willpower whatsoever when it comes to cookbooks (or recipes or chocolate for that matter). I was sad to hear Borders would be closing over 200 stores (three in the St. Louis area). But secretly, deep down inside, I was like, OMG:  Book Sale! But did not show such joy as I paid for books I coveted (and for some odd reason was too cheap to order on Amazon--something about the environmental footprint of air cargo across the country to my front door for a book--bothers me.) I had checked out Dorie Greenspan's Baking from My Home to Yours for the sixth time from my library. Sixth. And I just had renewed my copy for the second three week period. To heck with it, I am getting my own gosh darn copy--and that's exactly what I did this weekend, thank you Borders. I waited in line, not once, not twice, but THREE times as I was certain adding to my cookbook collection was justified as I did my little part to help lower the inventory levels there where signs read: Everything Must Go! (They might as well have read: Everything Must Go to Kelly's House!)

With all this cold and freezing weather and up and down and cloudy one day, seventy-eight the next, all I could think about was baking. I even amped up the bread baking again after a brief hiatus from it when I tore the flip flops out last week (but have since returned to wool socks and heavy footwear).

Uh, and okay, I'll admit, I came home with a new bread book, too: The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Beranbaum. And this sent me on a journey making Pretzel Rolls we used for mini-vegan-chicken-sliders. (BTW, baking said rolls requires lye for achieving that brown crusty pretzel mall store look.) No thank you, I opted out of the lye and protective eyewear for achieving such results. I'll post more about the bread experiments from Rose's book later.

 Meantime, Dorie's cookbook has this amazing recipe for pumpkin muffins here. I already knew this recipe quite well after holding the book hostage here for many weeks. The muffins are inspired by baker Sarabeth Levine--whose own cookbook is now out, but I am quite intimidated by--have had my eye on for some time, gathering the courage to possibly bring it home. Anyway, I am a sucker for muffins. Any kind. Any time. I created my own vegan version of these delicious jewels by sticking to the usual vegan substitution suspects again: Ener-G egg replacer for 2 eggs, and used unsalted veggie margerine. I added a tablespoon of flax seed (just because), and I would say if you make these, for sure, use fresh grated nutmeg (which I am now officially in love with)! You could also add a teaspoon of zested orange. I thought about it, but decided against because I wanted to really taste pumpkin. I added a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice to the mix as well. Our home smelled like a cozy winter cabin. I also made these in JUMBO muffin tins--which yielded me eight and I baked them for about the same time suggested in the recipe--maybe a few minutes longer because more batter was used. Here's a tip for baking Jumbo Muffins and realizing you have empty tins--fill those empties with water--it will help the muffins rise, and more evenly cook. I don't know why this is so, I just know I read it somewhere and it works--so when I have empty tins in muffin pans, I fill them with water and carefully pour off the water after they come out of the oven and have cooled a bit. Nonetheless--they rock. They are worth making and provided me with a great freezing rain morning breakfast. . . and an afternoon snack, too! Hot chocolate optional.