Dear Caitlin,

Like you, I know how to be a good houseguest.  I arrive equipped with delicious baked treats and my host’s drink of choice.

True story:  Sometimes I also arrive with my spouse and dogs.  One of those dogs is a border collie.  And if you’re willing to host that crowd, well, you deserve extra-special baked goods.

Last weekend, we visited San Antonio (hereinafter referred to as “The Greatest City”).  Fortunately, I have friends in The Greatest City who are willing to put up with me.  One of those friends has five roommates.  And those five roommates volunteered to put up me, spouse, and dogs.  So they deserved baked goods.

The problem, of course, when cooking gifts for a crowd, is that everyone has different styles.  So I brought along pumpkin muffins in two varieties:  Healthy and Chocolatey.  I’ll share Chocolatey in a few days.

In the meantime, here’s Healthy:

I adapted this from Joy the Baker‘s Pumpkin, Millet, and Chocolate Muffins.  The original itself is wonderful.  It perfectly toes the line between containing actual food and being delicious.  I wanted to see, however, where the extremes would take it.

Only good places.

Recipe
Ingredients
1/2 Cup Plain Greek Yogurt
3/4 Cup Brown Sugar (can be reduced to 1/2 Cup if you’re feeling especially virtuous)
2 Large Eggs
1 Cup Canned Pumpkin Puree
2 Teaspoons Vanilla Extract
1 3/4 Cup Whole Wheat Flour
1/2 Teaspoon Salt
1 Teaspoon Baking Soda
1 Teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
1/2 Teaspoon Ground Ginger
1/4 Teaspoon Ground Nutmeg
1/4 Cup Buttermilk

(1) Preheat oven to 325 degrees.  Line muffin tin with wrappers.  Do not skip this step.  These muffins have no added oil, and no one wants to spend their free time scrubbing those individual little wells.  Spray the wrappers with non-stick cooking spray.

(2) Combine dry ingredients.

(3) Combine all wet ingredients except buttermilk.

(4) Combine wet ingredients with dry until just mixed.

(5) Fold in buttermilk.

(6) Fill muffin pan until each well is about 2/3 or 3/4 full.

(7) Bake 15-17 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.  (Realistically, I never use a toothpick.  I use a fork and just count on a couple muffins looking speared.  Those muffins just won’t be gift-worthy.  You’ll have to eat them yourself.  TOO BAD.)

Note:  I omitted the millet from the original recipe.  Millet is healthy and delicious.  Annnnd if you live in a place where you can procure it, you should definitely add 1/2 cup of millet.  I could have ordered it from Amazon, of course.  But sometimes you need muffins. Right. Now.