treat petite: pumpkin spice cupcakes

For Thanksgiving (which we celebrate in October here in Canada), Paul's family always gets together for a big turkey feast. Everyone contributes a little something and we end up with A LOT of food (this year there were 36 of us and that was only a small part of the family!). I decided to bake some cupcakes for the party - and in keeping with the big trend these days (and the fact that Thanksgiving is never complete without something pumpkin), I chose to make some Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes.

As an added bonus, these cupcakes are perfect for my second "Treat Petite" challenge from Stuart (aka Cakeyboi) and Kat (aka The Baking Explorer). The theme for October's challenge, hosted by Stuart, is "Halloween" and Halloween definitely isn't complete without PUMPKINS!

treat petite: blueberry muffins

UPDATED: For my first "Treat Petite" challenge from Stuart (aka Cakeyboi) and Kat (aka The Baking Explorer) , I'm using one of my favourite past recipes - blueberry muffins. The theme for Treat Petite No. 1 is 'No Theme', so anything goes!  :)

I had a couple of extra days off from work last weekend so I was planning on whipping up a double-batch of banana crumb muffins (after I made them for the first time, there were a lot of complaints from family members who saw the photos and didn't get to try any so I was trying to bake enough for everyone).

While I was getting everything prepped, I noticed a HUGE bucket of fresh blueberries on the kitchen table. Apparently, my mom's friend had spent the weekend "picking-your-own" blueberries and ended up with too much, so gave us some. They were incredibly small (and juicy) and I immediately jumped on the internet to find a simple blueberry muffin recipe.

I ended up baking two batches of banana crumb muffins and one batch of these delicious blueberry muffins. The original recipe (on allrecipes.com) included a crumb topping, but I just used the same crumb topping that I use for the banana muffins.

Note: Crumb topping is always amazing if you eat the muffins on the same day as they're baked. Otherwise, they get soggy by the next day. If you aren't planning on eating these right away, I'd suggest skipping the crumb topping and just making simple blueberry muffins (Paul requested that I leave the crumb topping off one muffin for him and you can see from the photo above that it's still stunning).

Either way, these muffins are perfect for breakfast...or dessert...or a snack!  :)