Oat Flour Pumpkin Muffins

Soft, fluffy and fall flavorful pumpkin muffins made with oat flour. This is a make ahead, one bowl, gluten-free recipe. 

Recipe overview 

Once the banana muffins had taken (perfect) shape, I immediately knew I wanted to do a pumpkin version: pumpkin muffins made with oat flour. 

Pumpkin puree is not a direct swap for banana though; it lacks both the added fat and sugars and compositionally is more water than banana. So while it’s a great moisture addition, you can still make a dry pumpkin bake – which is close to impossible with a banana bread.  

For those reasons, technically this recipe has more in common with my brown butter muffins than it does the banana oat muffins. The goal, as always, is to find a balance of ingredients that yields a tender, moist muffin that’s not as soft as a cupcake but never dry. Also, my favorite part: to get a good dome! 

Recipe Ingredients 

Butter: Unsalted, but if you are using salted, you can halve the salt listed below. No need to soften but careful when melting, if butter starts spitting then you’ve lost some precious fat and moisture and the muffins will come out dry. 

Pumpkin puree: I used to be a proponent of making my own pumpkin puree with those cute sugar pumpkins but those are incredibly watery. Some cans you get from the store are also fairly ‘wet’. Libby’s pumpkin puree (NOT pumpkin pie filling!) is a good one because it’s quite thick. 

Sugar: Light or dark brown is fine. If you like you can add some turbinado or organic sugar on the tops of the muffins before they bake for a crunchy topping. 

Spices: Unless you are a regular baker/cook you might not have all the spices listed below. You can use pumpkin pie spice as a swap for all the spices listed (2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice). And if you like you can add a pinch of clove to the mix for a little punch although I know clove is divisive. 

Milk: Whole or 2% milk. 

Oat flour: The question I get most often about oat flour is; can I make it myself? And what brand to you use? To the latter: arrowhead mills, anthony’s or bob’s red mill. To the former, if you’ve had success processing rolled oats into a very fine flour before then I believe it will work here. 

Tricks to getting those perfectly domed muffin tops 

• Don’t overmix the batter: flour goes in last and should just be stirred in until you can’t see it. No more! This is especially true with muffins that have gluten in them so it’s less important here but still no need to over mix. 

• Rest the batter: For at least four hours in the fridge but preferably overnight. While I do this with these brown butter muffins for a good dome, it’s not just for looks in an oat flour muffin because this rest/chill time allows the oat bits to dissolve and bind into the batter. 

• Bake at a high temperature: Some people suggest getting a dome by starting the oven out at 425 or even 450 for the first five minutes then baking at the average 350. I’m the type of person that needs to put something in the oven and move on to the next project, so I just do a full bake at 400F which gives me perfect domes without fussing over the oven temperature. 

• Fill every other muffin cup: Whenever I make a muffin video you see me use two 12 cup pans to make just one batch of 12 muffins. This is I trick I learned from Michelle at HBH; it allows for better heat circulation around the individual muffins so they rise and dome perfectly.

Oat Flour Pumpkin Muffins

Soft, fluffy and fall flavorful pumpkin muffins made with oat flour. This is a make ahead, one bowl, gluten-free recipe.

Prep Time: 10 minutes mins

Cook Time: 20 minutes mins

Chill Time: 8 hours hrs

Yields: 12 muffins

5 from 5 votes

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Ingredients

• 113g or ½ cup butter
• 200 g or 1 cup minus 2 tablespoons pumpkin puree
• 200g or 1 cup brown sugar
• 2 eggs
• ½ tsp fine sea salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla
• ½ tsp ginger
• ½ tsp nutmeg
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 240g or 2 cups oat flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 160 g or ⅔ cup whole milk

Method

• Melt the butter in a large, heatproof bowl. Stir in the sugar, whisking very well. Add the eggs and whisk until thick and fluffy.
• Add the pumpkin puree, salt, spices and vanilla and whisk to combine.
• Add the oat flour, baking soda and milk and whisk to combine. Cover with plastic wrap and set in the fridge overnight.
• Preheat the oven to 400 F. Line two cupcake tins with muffin cups, alternating so each tin only has six cups and no two cups are next to each other.
• Fill muffin cups with ¼ cup batter (almost to the top). Bake for 20 minutes until the tops spring back when pressed.

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