Pumpkin Muffins + Caramel Sauce = Delicious

It’s that time of year again and although the weather in California is anything but fall weather as I write this I’m forcing it! We are making it feel like fall gosh darn it and I’m doing it through food since the weather won’t cooperate!

The Muffins

If you read my review of Simple Mills Banana Muffins you know that I am a fan! Again Simple Mills is very transparent with their ingredients. Here are the Pumpkin Muffin & Bread ingredients: Almond Flour, Organic Coconut Sugar, Pumpkin, Arrowroot, Organic Coconut Flour, Organic Spices (Cinnamon, Nutmeg, Cloves), Baking Soda, Sea Salt. You just add 3 eggs, 1 Cup of water and 3 Tablespoons of Oil (I used coconut oil). The mix made 30 mini muffins plus 4 full sized muffins easily. You can also make a loaf or mini loafs (this will be the next thing I try, I will post to Instagram when I’ve made those!) I also separated the batter into fourths. I made plain (exactly as written on the box), I made some with just pecans, some with just Granny Smith Apples and some with both Pecans and Granny Smiths. I used about a 1/4 of pecans total and just under 1/4 a cup of diced apples total.

What I Think Of My Variations

This Simple Mills Pumpkin Muffin is great by itself. I think I like the ones with just the pecans added the least. I preferred the muffins with both pecans and apples and topped with the caramel sauce! I like the crunch from the nuts and fresh, crispness from the apples. This muffin reminded me of the zucchini bread we use to make with our mom. Anything that comes close to those recipes that I once loved is a keeper in my book. I just decided to get fancy and add nuts and apples to see if I could make something that I could serve at a party or little holiday gathering. Boy did this fit that bill. My kids couldn’t get enough and I had to hold myself back from devouring many muffins in one afternoon! These also freeze really well. That is how I help myself with the temptation. I bake them, eat one and when they cool I throw the rest in an airtight container and get them in the freezer. They thaw out really nicely and I added the caramel sauce and chopped apple and nuts after the muffin thawed, so it is a great thing to make ahead and freeze if you are having a party!

Caramel Sauce

On a whim I decided to try and make a caramel sauce, no recipe just many episodes of Chopped watched on Food Network.  The actual recipe is below, but originally I just winged it! I threw some Organic Coconut Sugar in a small pot. When that started to melt I poured in some coconut milk, let it boil for about 30 seconds to a minute and then took the pot off the heat. That’s it! Viola paleo caramel sauce. The Granny Smith Apples dipped in this sauce were amazing, but then I added a sprinkle of cinnamon and a dash of salt and then I absolutely Loved this sauce, especially drizzled over these muffins. I reserved some cut up pecans and apples to put on top of the muffins so that you would know what was inside, plain, just pecans, just apples or both apples and pecans. Nothing says Autumn more to me than pumpkin, apples, pecans, cinnamon and caramel! I mean how can you go wrong?!