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I have a touch of holiday magic for you today in the form of Pumpkin Gingerbread Muffins! Marvelously moist with tender centers and crunchy sugar tops, these splendid muffins offer the best of two all-star holiday flavors.

Pumpkin Gingerbread Muffins on a cooling rack

This recipe is sponsored by Land O’Lakes.

Pumpkin is a celebrity flavor whose tenure starts earlier and earlier each year, and for good reason. Its familiar cozy flavor and natural moisture make it a versatile gem in wholesome baking recipes ranging from Healthy Pumpkin Cookies to Healthy Pumpkin Muffins to Pumpkin Sheet Cake with Greek Yogurt Cream Cheese Frosting.

Gingerbread, however, is a late bloomer. It’s not until December that I see recipes like these Gingerbread Muffins and my all-time favorite Chocolate Ginger Cookies pop into popularity.

A lover of gingerbread’s intensity—there’s something refreshing about a flavor that’s up-front and there’s certainly nothing subtle about gingerbread’s spiciness and warmth—I always find the delay a bit of a shame.

Perhaps, I thought, pumpkin can ease us all into it.

Healthy pumpkin gingerbread muffins

Pumpkin + Gingerbread A Match Made in Holiday Heaven

Combining pumpkin and gingerbread turned out to be one of the very best baking decisions I’ve made!

The innate subtly of pumpkin (pumpkin is actually pretty bland until you add the spices) is the ideal counterpoint to the spicy intensity of gingerbread. If there were a flavor dating app, surely these two would have been a swipe right.

I shared these muffins with a friend, and her feedback was that the balance was exactly 50/50 between pumpkin and gingerbread and she wouldn’t change a thing; not a fraction of a teaspoon of spice is misplaced.

Whether straight-up gingerbread hasn’t been your thing, you happen to love both pumpkin AND gingerbread, and the idea of not having to choose appeals to you, or you are looking for a stellar holiday breakfast recipe, these pumpkin gingerbread muffins will be a holiday gift to you!

Sticks of butter next to baked goods

How to Make Pumpkin Gingerbread Muffins

These muffins are made with simple, wholesome ingredients including whole grains and pure maple syrup.

The batter is easy going – you won’t even need to bust out the mixer!


The Ingredients

  • Pumpkin. The first half of our holiday flavor tango. While it may not be a flavor powerhouse on its own, once combined with the molasses and spices, it shines.
  • Molasses. The key to the signature gingerbread flavor. Molasses adds a rich, sweet warmth that’s full of flavor. Make sure to use regular molasses here (usually labeled “unsulphered”), as blackstrap will be too bitter.
  • . My favorite butter for its quality, taste, and value for the price. I stock the convenient half-stick size most often. It’s ideal for smaller batch cooking and recipes like these muffins, where a lesser amount of butter is needed.
Butter, eggs, flour, and a can of pumpkin

In addition to loving the way the butter tastes and its simple ingredient list, I appreciate that Land O’Lakes is a co-op, meaning the company is owned by its dairy farmers (more than 1,700 of them!). I also think it’s fantastic that the company has made highlighting female farmers a priority (fun fact: 30% of dairy farming in the U.S. is done by women). You can learn more about their farmer-owners here.

  • Flour. I found that a mixture of all-purpose flour and white whole wheat flour worked perfectly here. You are getting whole grain benefits, and the muffins stay nice and fluffy.
  • Spices. A combination of ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves adds cozy spice to these muffins. The spices truly take their flavor to the next level.
  • Maple Syrup. Wonderful in its natural sweetness and the way it pairs with molasses.
  • Sparkling Sugar. A beautiful way to finish these muffins! The crunchy tops are worth devouring all on their own.

The Directions

Wet ingredients being whisked together
  1. Stir the dry ingredients together in one bowl and the wet ingredients in another.
Dry ingredients being stirred into wet ingredients
  1. Combine the dry and wet ingredients.
Batter for pumpkin gingerbread muffins in a bowl
  1. Stir until the flour disappears.
Batter in a muffin pan
  1. Pour the batter into the wells of a muffin pan, then sprinkle sparkling sugar over the tops.
Pumpkin gingerbread muffins in a muffin pan
  1. Bake at 375 degrees F for 20 to 22 minutes. Let cool for a few minutes, then DIG IN!
A box of butter with pumpkin gingerbread muffins

Storage Tips

  • To Store. Store muffins at room temperature for up to 5 days in an airtight storage container lined with paper towels. 
  • To Freeze. Freeze muffins in an airtight, freezer-safe storage container for up to 3 months. Thaw and enjoy as desired. 

Tip!

For additional muffin storage tips and tricks, check out my post on How to Store Muffins.

Fluffy pumpkin gingerbread muffins

Serve Your Muffins With

Fluffy pumpkin gingerbread muffins with sugar on top

With pumpkin, deep gingerbread spice, and everything nice, these do-it-all muffins are the total (holiday) package!

Pumpkin Gingerbread Muffins

4.97 From 28 reviews . Help us out! Review HERE.Help out & review HERE

Prep: 20 minutes
Cook: 20 minutes
Total: 45 minutes

Servings: 12 muffins
These easy pumpkin gingerbread muffins are the best of both worlds! Fantastically moist and perfectly spiced, they are a fresh delight.

Ingredients
  

  • ¾ cup all-purpose flour
  • ¾ cup white whole wheat flour or additional all-purpose flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • ½ teaspoon kosher salt
  • 1 ½ teaspoons ground ginger
  • 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
  • 1 cup pumpkin purée not pumpkin pie filling
  • ½ cup pure maple syrup
  • ½ cup unsulphured molasses do not use blackstrap; it will be too bitter
  • ¼ cup Land O Lakes® Unsalted Butter in Half-Sticks melted and cooled to room temperature
  • 2 large eggs at room temperature
  • 2 tablespoons coarse sparkling sugar or turbinado sugar

Instructions
 

  • Place a rack in the center of your oven and preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Lightly coat a standard 12-cup muffin pan with nonstick spray.
  • In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, white whole wheat flour, baking soda, salt, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. In a separate, larger mixing bowl, stir together the pumpkin puree, maple syrup, molasses, melted butter, and eggs until well blended.
  • Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, then by hand with a rubber spatula or wooden spoon, stir very gently to combine; stop as soon as the flour disappears. The batter will seem loose and a little lumpy.
  • Divide the batter among the muffin cups, filling them no more than 3/4 of the way to the top. Sprinkle the tops of each muffin with 1/2 teaspoon sparkling sugar.
  • Bake the muffins for 20 to 22 minutes, until the tops spring back lightly when touched and a tester inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Place the muffin pan on a wire rack and let the muffins cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Carefully remove the muffins from the pan and transfer to the rack to cool completely. These taste even better as they rest. Enjoy!

Video

Notes

  • TO STORE: Store muffins at room temperature for up to 5 days in an airtight storage container lined with paper towels. 
  • TO FREEZE: Freeze muffins in an airtight, freezer-safe storage container for up to 3 months. Thaw and enjoy as desired. 

Nutrition

Serving: 1(of 12)Calories: 191kcalCarbohydrates: 35gProtein: 3gFat: 5gSaturated Fat: 3gCholesterol: 37mgPotassium: 308mgFiber: 2gSugar: 21gVitamin A: 3335IUVitamin C: 1mgCalcium: 62mgIron: 2mg

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I am sharing this post in partnership with Land O’Lakes. As always, all opinions are my own. Thanks for supporting the brands and companies that make it possible for me to continue to create quality content for you!

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Erin Clarke

Hi, I'm Erin Clarke, and I'm fearlessly dedicated to making healthy food that's affordable, easy-to-make, and best of all DELISH. I'm the author and recipe developer here at wellplated.com and of The Well Plated Cookbook. I adore both sweets and veggies, and I am on a mission to save you time and dishes. WELCOME!

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  1. This recipe couldn’t have come at a better time as I just baked and pureed my “porch pumpkin”. Every year I get one that will bake well (fit in my oven!) and just freeze the puree. I’m also a huge lover of ginger so this combination should be wonderful. I love cake in general while my husband is more of a pie person. Muffins are a way for me to have my cake fix and he’ll eat them as well. Have a great day.

    1. Sarah, you can but the muffins will be heavier and more dense. If you do decide to use all whole wheat, I’d suggest adding a tablespoon of milk to the recipe to keep them from being too dry. I hope you enjoy them!

      1. I tried it with all wheat flour, fresh ground white wheat berries and it turned out great! I added the milk and they were very moist. I feel like the texture was like you would have with a pumpkin bread, so I didn’t really feel it was all that sense. Maybe more sense than normal for a muffin but it worked for me! Thanks!!

  2. Made this muffin recipe using a gluten free baking flour which worked well. Super moist with a rich gingerbread flavor. Marking this recipe as a “favorite”5 stars

  3. I haven’t made these yet, but they sound amazing! However, my daughter needs gluten free. Do you have a recommendation for what gluten free flour mix might work best?

      1. Planning in making these muffins. I noticed the 15 ounce can of puréed pumpkin has about 1 3/4 cup of pumpkin. Is there a conversion for this recipe that uses the entire can?

        1. Hi Cindy, I have only tested this recipe as is but if you use the slider button in the recipe card for servings and slide to 21 muffins (which is close to the 2x amount) it will show you how to make them using the whole can. It does change the ingredient amounts into decimals (that’s a plugin feature and not something I can change) so you’d have to calculate what those are in teaspoons/cups etc. but it would help you use that whole can. Hope this helps!

  4. Delicious muffins and healthier than my go to gingerbread recipe. I made these with all whole wheat flour and forgot the milk and they turned out great. I added. about 3/4 cup of chopped walnuts but didn’t have any sparkling sugar so left them plain. Gotta buy more molasses to make another batch. Great recipe.5 stars

    1. Hi Joanne! I’ve only tested the recipe as written, but I think you could experiment with it. If you decide to try it, I’d love to hear how it goes!

      1. I made it into a loaf by lowering the oven temperature to 350 degrees and cooking for 45 minutes. He worked great!5 stars

    1. Hi Bonnie! Since oat flour and regular flour react very differently in baking, I actually wouldn’t recommend this swap. If you’d like to make an oat flour recipe, I’d suggest checking out some of these options. I hope this helps!

  5. Thank you so much for the recipe! It turned out that we didn’t have any real maple syrup on hand at the moment, so I substituted pancake syrup for it and it worked out fine.5 stars

  6. These look amazing! Your site is my favourite “go to” for great recipes!
    I’m baking these for a family brunch gathering, and one of our family cannot have butter. Could I sub with coconut oil?

    1. Hi Linda, I’ve only tested these with butter. If you decide to experiment with coconut oil, let me know how it goes!

  7. I had left over pumpkin from making my smoothie so I thought I would try these. I used Heritage Grain white whole wheat flour only and they came out so moist and soft! I love the fact that there is no sugar in the recipe. This is a definite keeper Erin!5 stars

  8. Delicious! Light, fluffy and full of my favorite flavors. I added some cardamom to the spice mix and used whole wheat flour instead of white whole wheat flour. Wasn’t dense at all, even without adding a little milk. Thanks for a great recipe!5 stars

  9. OH WOW!!!! What a tasty muffin! Fluffy, moist and bursting with flavor. I initially thought, “Yikes, that’s a lot of molasses!” But not at all. I tweaked the recipe to my dietary needs by: substituting egg whites for whole eggs, and used gluten free flour only. No whole grain flours. I did use the butter since it was only a small amount ( I thought). OH, and I didn’t have enough ground ginger so I grated fresh ginger -about 1 healthy tsp- as well as about 1/2 tsp ground ginger. And I sprinkled a little turbinado sugar on the tops. They were darker than yours pictured. But they are gorgeous as well! What an excellent muffin! Thank you so much!5 stars

  10. Didn’t have whole wheat flour. Considered using Rye flour as an alternative, but wound up going with 1.5 cups of All-purpose in the end.

    These are incredible! Flavor, texture…, Exactly what I hoped it would be.5 stars

  11. I loved how filling yet still light and full of nutrition this soup was!!
    Super great:) I will recommend it to others for sure!5 stars

  12. I love pumpkin muffins and I adore gingerbread. These muffins are a match made in heaven! I made them today, my house smells amazing ! My husband took one bite and put his stamp of approval on these muffins! Adding to my rotation of muffin recipes!5 stars

  13. Wow. I make a lot of various muffin/sweet bread recipes & this truly exceeded my expectations. I prefer less sweet muffins so did decrease the maple syrup to 1/3 cup & can likely reduce to 1/4; however, these turned out incredibly flavorful & tender. Thank you!!5 stars

  14. It’s only September 1st, but I had a craving gingerbread. I also try to find healthy recipes so I can make mini-muffins – these work out wonderfully to include in my son’s lunchbox or for a snack.

    These have a wonderful gingerbread “bite” to them. The only change I made was using a mini-muffin pan, and baked them for 14 minutes at a little bit above 350. I may also cut the maple syrup a tad (any idea how much of the syrup can be cut without changing the recipe too much?).

    Thanks for the recipe – it’s a keeper!5 stars

    1. So glad to hear you enjoyed the muffins, Aliya! Thanks for the feedback on making them mini. As far as the syrup, you’d have to play around with it, I’ve only tested the recipe as is!

No comments (yet). Help our readers and give a thumbs up to any comment you found helpful!

  1. This recipe couldn’t have come at a better time as I just baked and pureed my “porch pumpkin”. Every year I get one that will bake well (fit in my oven!) and just freeze the puree. I’m also a huge lover of ginger so this combination should be wonderful. I love cake in general while my husband is more of a pie person. Muffins are a way for me to have my cake fix and he’ll eat them as well. Have a great day.

    1. Sarah, you can but the muffins will be heavier and more dense. If you do decide to use all whole wheat, I’d suggest adding a tablespoon of milk to the recipe to keep them from being too dry. I hope you enjoy them!

      1. I tried it with all wheat flour, fresh ground white wheat berries and it turned out great! I added the milk and they were very moist. I feel like the texture was like you would have with a pumpkin bread, so I didn’t really feel it was all that sense. Maybe more sense than normal for a muffin but it worked for me! Thanks!!

  2. Made this muffin recipe using a gluten free baking flour which worked well. Super moist with a rich gingerbread flavor. Marking this recipe as a “favorite”5 stars

  3. I haven’t made these yet, but they sound amazing! However, my daughter needs gluten free. Do you have a recommendation for what gluten free flour mix might work best?

      1. Planning in making these muffins. I noticed the 15 ounce can of puréed pumpkin has about 1 3/4 cup of pumpkin. Is there a conversion for this recipe that uses the entire can?

        1. Hi Cindy, I have only tested this recipe as is but if you use the slider button in the recipe card for servings and slide to 21 muffins (which is close to the 2x amount) it will show you how to make them using the whole can. It does change the ingredient amounts into decimals (that’s a plugin feature and not something I can change) so you’d have to calculate what those are in teaspoons/cups etc. but it would help you use that whole can. Hope this helps!

  4. Delicious muffins and healthier than my go to gingerbread recipe. I made these with all whole wheat flour and forgot the milk and they turned out great. I added. about 3/4 cup of chopped walnuts but didn’t have any sparkling sugar so left them plain. Gotta buy more molasses to make another batch. Great recipe.5 stars

    1. Hi Joanne! I’ve only tested the recipe as written, but I think you could experiment with it. If you decide to try it, I’d love to hear how it goes!

      1. I made it into a loaf by lowering the oven temperature to 350 degrees and cooking for 45 minutes. He worked great!5 stars

    1. Hi Bonnie! Since oat flour and regular flour react very differently in baking, I actually wouldn’t recommend this swap. If you’d like to make an oat flour recipe, I’d suggest checking out some of these options. I hope this helps!

  5. Thank you so much for the recipe! It turned out that we didn’t have any real maple syrup on hand at the moment, so I substituted pancake syrup for it and it worked out fine.5 stars

  6. These look amazing! Your site is my favourite “go to” for great recipes!
    I’m baking these for a family brunch gathering, and one of our family cannot have butter. Could I sub with coconut oil?

    1. Hi Linda, I’ve only tested these with butter. If you decide to experiment with coconut oil, let me know how it goes!

  7. I had left over pumpkin from making my smoothie so I thought I would try these. I used Heritage Grain white whole wheat flour only and they came out so moist and soft! I love the fact that there is no sugar in the recipe. This is a definite keeper Erin!5 stars

  8. Delicious! Light, fluffy and full of my favorite flavors. I added some cardamom to the spice mix and used whole wheat flour instead of white whole wheat flour. Wasn’t dense at all, even without adding a little milk. Thanks for a great recipe!5 stars

  9. OH WOW!!!! What a tasty muffin! Fluffy, moist and bursting with flavor. I initially thought, “Yikes, that’s a lot of molasses!” But not at all. I tweaked the recipe to my dietary needs by: substituting egg whites for whole eggs, and used gluten free flour only. No whole grain flours. I did use the butter since it was only a small amount ( I thought). OH, and I didn’t have enough ground ginger so I grated fresh ginger -about 1 healthy tsp- as well as about 1/2 tsp ground ginger. And I sprinkled a little turbinado sugar on the tops. They were darker than yours pictured. But they are gorgeous as well! What an excellent muffin! Thank you so much!5 stars

  10. Didn’t have whole wheat flour. Considered using Rye flour as an alternative, but wound up going with 1.5 cups of All-purpose in the end.

    These are incredible! Flavor, texture…, Exactly what I hoped it would be.5 stars

  11. I loved how filling yet still light and full of nutrition this soup was!!
    Super great:) I will recommend it to others for sure!5 stars

  12. I love pumpkin muffins and I adore gingerbread. These muffins are a match made in heaven! I made them today, my house smells amazing ! My husband took one bite and put his stamp of approval on these muffins! Adding to my rotation of muffin recipes!5 stars

  13. Wow. I make a lot of various muffin/sweet bread recipes & this truly exceeded my expectations. I prefer less sweet muffins so did decrease the maple syrup to 1/3 cup & can likely reduce to 1/4; however, these turned out incredibly flavorful & tender. Thank you!!5 stars

  14. It’s only September 1st, but I had a craving gingerbread. I also try to find healthy recipes so I can make mini-muffins – these work out wonderfully to include in my son’s lunchbox or for a snack.

    These have a wonderful gingerbread “bite” to them. The only change I made was using a mini-muffin pan, and baked them for 14 minutes at a little bit above 350. I may also cut the maple syrup a tad (any idea how much of the syrup can be cut without changing the recipe too much?).

    Thanks for the recipe – it’s a keeper!5 stars

    1. So glad to hear you enjoyed the muffins, Aliya! Thanks for the feedback on making them mini. As far as the syrup, you’d have to play around with it, I’ve only tested the recipe as is!