I don’t know if pumpkin is a southern thing. You always hear of pumpkin pie on Southern tables at Thanksgiving and such, but no one in my family has ever made a pumpkin pie to my knowledge. I had never tasted anything at all with pumpkin until about three years ago. While on a quilting retreat, we were served these delicious spice muffins and I just had to have the recipe. Imagine my surprise (and Mama’s) when we found out they were pumpkin!
You see, Mama had always claimed to dislike anything pumpkin. She had tried pumpkin pie as a child and whenever we asked about it she would just shake her head and say “Its kind of slimy, trust me, you wouldn’t like it”. Of course, we took her word for it, and each one of us grew up to be avowed pumpkin dislikers as well. You know, I’m pretty sure “disliker” is not a word but it makes perfect sense in that sentence, doesn’t it? See, the English language just needs to keep up with me and we’ll all be better off.
Anyway, as it turns out, Mama must have gotten a hold of a bad piece of pumpkin pie as a child because we have both broadened our horizons with regards to pumpkin since that muffin incident and it is now a regular part in our holiday baking, as well as year round baking thanks to these muffins.
No, these aren’t the ones we had on retreat. They are actually better except for one thing – those on the retreat were baked for us, you have to bake these yourself. Everything tastes better when someone else cooks it for you!
A neighbor of a friend gave me this recipe when I was telling her about the muffins. She was of the Northern persuasion and, thinking pumpkin was a Northern thing at the time, I asked her if she happened to know how to make pumpkin muffins.
Her face immediately lit up with glee at getting to pass this recipe on to one more person and now I share that glee in passing it on to you. To quote the person who first gave it to me…”If you want to make the BEST pumpkin muffins on earth…”
Oooh ooh! The best part…I added the streusel topping from Grandmama’s Sweet Potato Casseroleto them! They were good before but now – WOW! Tastes like something you’d get in a coffee shop. Go ahead, impress someone with your culinary skill today. Just make sure you hide the cake mix box in the very bottom of your trash can. Putting a few crumpled paper towels on top of it wouldn’t hurt, either.

Ingredients
For the Muffins:
- 1 box spice cake mix
- 1 can pumpkin
- 1/2 cup water
For the Topping:
- 1 Cup Brown Sugar
- 1/2 Cup Stick Margarine or butter
- 1 Cup Flour
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 12 cup muffin tin.
- In mixing bowl, place all ingredients. Mix until well blended. Scoop into muffin tin.
- For the topping, stir together flour and brown sugar, breaking up any lumps. Cut in butter or margarine. Spoon or sprinkle on top of muffins, pat down slightly.
- Bake at 350 for 20-24 minutes.
Nutrition
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Love these muffins with the topping. Added 1/2 bag of mini chocolate chips which made them even more fantastic!
Finally tried this and wow! Fall flavor in a super easy recipe. Used buttermilk in place of water just because I had it & baked in cupcake liners. Turned out perfectly and what takes them over the top is the streusel topping. Many thanks! This one goes in our family favorites album.
Isn’t that streusel topping just the best!! Thank you so much for letting me know that you loved it. Truly warms my heart.
We got 7″ of snow last night and more on the way. I love that this is so easy! I’m going to make these this afternoon and have one with a cup of tea 🙂 Thanks for the recipe!
Oh WOW, 7” of snow already!! Stay warm and I hope you enjoy the muffins!!
So, I’m late to the party on this one but I didn’t see anyone say what is on my mind. I never use margarine, I think butter is much healthier. Is there a reason you choose margarine over butter for this recipe?
I love these cake mix muffins. Super easy. I buy a case of pumpkin every year after the Thanksgiving rush. Canned pumpkin has so many uses and is healthy eating.
I made these for a church brunch and they were a big hit! I had complete strangers coming up to tell me how much they liked them, when I went to collect the empty tray. And they were SO easy to make!
I am so glad to hear that were a hit!!!