Pumpkin Brown Butter Muffins

Wow, I just had some major blogger drama this morning! I woke up to find that one of my readers had emailed me about a company she found that was using my H Cupcakes photo as their logo! Their company name was H's Cupcakes and they had a "store front" on Facebook. I can't believe they were trying to sell my cupcake creation as their own! Grrr! That made me sooo mad! Luckily, Facebook has an infringement complaint feature and they were able to remove it. I can't believe there are people out there who would plagiarize so shamelessly! (Is it still called "plagiarizing" if it's a photo?) The thing that really makes me mad is that they're trying to sell something to their customers that they didn't even make! How shady is that?! Anyway, I was SO thankful that this reader took the time to email me and let me know. That was such a nice thing to do, wasn't it??

Shesh! Anyway... on to happier topics! Pumpkin Brown Butter Muffins! With sage, no less! Weird, huh? But SO gooood.

Mmmm...brown butter frosting. Delicious!

So as I mentioned before, the secret ingredient in these muffins is sage! At first I thought it would be weird in a sweet muffin. But then I thought of all those times I judged a recipe before making it and all the times those "weird" things turned out to be absolutely divine. So I took a leap of faith. Besides, it's a Martha recipe. You really can't go wrong.


You'll need to chop the sage up into small pieces. I'd like to take this time to rave about my new knife: the 5.5 inch Shun Kaji Santoku Knife. Hubby recently bought it for me. Isn't it a beauty??


Can you see the cool logo on the knife handle? I'm soooo in love with this knife! It cuts into onions and potatoes like butter. It literally cuts prep time in half for those recipes that require a lot of ingredients to be chopped. Magical! I've asked "Santa" for the 8 piece knife block. I think I just might get it!!! =)

Anyway, once you've got your sage chopped up, set it aside to be used later.

Mix together the dry ingredients: flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves... all the yummy Christmas spices. Set aside.


And now for the brown butter. Brown butter is pretty much butter that's browned. lol. Do you like how I explained that so eloquently? =) You melt and heat butter until it's brown, which gives it a super deep, rich, caramel-y flavor. DELISH! If you've never had brown butter treats, you must try it!

Once the butter turns a golden brown, add the sage.

You'll need to skim off the little white foam parts floating on top. Set aside.

(When you add it to the batter, make sure not to pour in the burnt bits at the bottom. ick.)

In another bowl, add the wet ingredients: brown sugar, sugar, eggs, pumpkin, and of course, the brown butter! Mix well.

Incorporate the dry ingredients.



Bake at 325F for 20 minutes.
Can you see the little green sage bits? So pretty!

And now for the brown butter glaze...

You'll need to make another batch of brown butter and add powdered sugar to it, along with vanilla and a tad of milk.

Mix until smooth.

This glaze has a great texture...


It's very soft and liquid-y. The perfect glaze.


To coat your cupcake, dip it into the bowl.


Hold it upside down for a brief second, so the excess can drip off.


Then, rotate the cupcake.


The glaze will coat the cupcake perfectly with no "tail."


The glaze is really pretty - super shiny!

Mmmm so delicious! One of our friends said that it tasted like Christmas! The flavors are really great together. The caramel-y taste of the brown butter goes perfectly with the warm holiday spices.. the sage adds an extra something special. It's a great overall combination!

The frosting will crust over if you leave it overnight in the fridge. But warm it up for 15 seconds in the microwave and it's SO amazing. Give this a try, it'll be a new favorite holiday dessert!

CLICK HERE for the recipe