Fall Flavored Cupcakes and Muffins

Welcome to September and pumpkin spice season! This week in our Farm Fresh Tuesday Blog Hop, our featured posts feature fall flavored cupcakes and muffins!

Fall is Pumpkin Spice Season

Either you love it or you hate it! September hits, and all things pumpkin spice, cinnamon, and apple hit the shelves! I personally love it, as those are 3 of my most favorite flavors. So this week, I am featuring a couple of posts that share recipes for cupcakes or muffins that feature these fall flavors.

Be sure to check out my post on 7 Reasons Why You Should Grow Blue Jarrahdale Pumpkins!

7 Reasons Why EVERYONE should grow blue Jarradale Pumpkins! -The Reid Homestead #pumpkins #vegetablegardening #growyourownfood #jarrahdalepumpkins #pumpkin #growingpumpkins — Blue Jarrahdale Pumpkins are my favorite to grow for decoration as well as for preserving!

Preserve Your Own Pumpkins for Using in Recipes

Please check out my article on How to Preserve Your Pumpkins and Winter Squash by Roasting and Freezing. I use these packets of frozen pumpkin and squash puree in place of canned store bought product, for all of my pumpkin dessert recipes, including pie, muffins, quick breads, cookies and more! I also use them in curries, smoothies, soups and my favorite Pumpkin Spice Steel Cut Oats Recipe.

roasted meat of blue jarrahdale pumpkins — These are roasted Blue Jarrahdale Pumpkins, ready to have the meat frozen for use in recipes all year long.

Fall is also Apple Season

If apples are more your thing over pumpkins, I wanted to share two of my favorite tools for preserving apples.

3 large rubber bins full of harvested apples — Make the most out of your apple harvest by making apple sauce, juice, cider, apple butter, apple pie filling etc!

First, I love this steam juicer. Slice your apples in half, throw them in the top part of this 3 part contraption. The bottom part boils water and steams the fruit, the middle section collects the juice.

When all is said and done, you have applesauce in the top section and juice in the middle section, so you can preserve the apples two ways in one go! Then use the apple sauce to make wonderful fall flavored desserts such as muffins, quick breads, cookies and more!

The steam juicer also works great for grapes, berries and cranberries! I love to make apple-grape, apple-raspberry and/or apple-cranberry juice as well as grape juice and cranberry juice using this.

But we also LOVE fresh pressed cider. Last year we bought this smaller table top apple press and it was so easy to use. We quarter the apples, throw them in the food processor and pulse for a bit, and then throw them in the apple press. It's super easy and a great size for a small homestead. It also works for grapes or berries!