Mom's Spice Pumpkin Muffins

These pumpkin muffins lean on Bisquick to do the heavy lifting on the dry-ingredient side, which means there’s no flour-baking-soda-baking-powder-salt routine to measure. Stir the mix with canned pumpkin, milk, egg, sugar, cinnamon, and fresh ginger, and you’ve got muffins in the oven inside 10 minutes.

Fresh ground ginger (not dried) is the recipe’s flavor secret. Half a tablespoon delivers an unexpected warm bite that distinguishes these from the standard sweetly-spiced pumpkin muffin. Cinnamon does its supporting work, but the ginger leads.

The optional dried apricots are worth including. They add chewy pockets of bright tartness that contrast the soft, mildly sweet muffin around them. Snip them with kitchen scissors to control the size.

Pro Tips

• Mix just until the batter comes together, Bisquick muffins go tough quickly with overmixing
• Use canned pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling, which has its own sweetener and spice
• Fill muffin cups three-quarters full for proper domes
• Test doneness at 13 to 15 minutes, Bisquick recipes can run faster than scratch
• Cool 3 minutes in the tin before lifting out, hot Bisquick muffins fall apart

Variations

• Add a half teaspoon of allspice or clove for richer autumn spice
• Substitute chopped pecans for the apricots for nutty crunch
• Drizzle with maple glaze (powdered sugar plus maple syrup) for a sweeter finish