Oh, that sneaky pumpkin.

Looks like it found its way into a plain, ol’, boring cornbread recipe and it brought its friends Cinnamon, Nutmeg and Molasses!  How kind!

We’re getting two days of rain here in usually-sunny Southern California.  Perhaps the rest of the country would scoff, but for us this is an event!  Something to plan for!  And plan we did at work.  Monique is bringing vegetarian chili for our lunch on Tuesday, so I volunteered to bring the cornbread.  I didn’t have a favorite cornbread recipe on hand, so I went to Foodgawker and looked around for nearly 30 seconds before I found Pumpkin Cornbread at Sweet Pea’s Kitchen.  Huzzah!  The recipe wasn’t vegan, but I only had to switch out the egg to make it friendly.  Definitely not gluten-free either and I didn’t make any adjustments for that.  Maybe next time!

Crisp on the outside and warm and gooey on the inside. Perfect!

Recipe: Vegan Pumpkin Cornbread

Ingredients

• 1 cup flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon kosher salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 2 eggs (Use your egg replacement here! Ener-G Egg Replacer or a flax egg would do nicely, I think.)
• 1 cup pumpkin puree
• 1/4 cup olive oil
• 1 tablespoon molasses

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Grease muffin tin. I used a muffin pan that has spots for 12 muffins and is rather shallow so I could make many smaller cornbread muffins.
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, spices, brown sugar, and cornmeal. Set aside.
3. In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, lightly beat the eggs, and then stir in the pumpkin, oil, and molasses.
4. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients just until combined, and then pour the batter into the pan, smoothing the top.
5. Bake 15-20 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

Oh. Step 6: Slather with Earth Balance and consume as soon as the butter has dripped from the muffin and made a mess on your plate. That's when you know it's time.