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Is it truly fall if you aren’t surrounding yourself with pumpkins? You can put them on your front porch for some festive curve appeal, carve them into jack-o’-lanterns, and roast their seeds for a healthy snack. Pumpkin muffins and lattes and pies, oh my! Cue my inner Dorothy.

Speaking of pumpkin muffins, I’ve had a real hankering for some lately. I wanted to go beyond the classic pumpkin spice muffin (though you can’t go wrong with that!) and try something with a little twist. This past spring, I discovered baking with cardamom. I really enjoyed this spice as an ingredient and have been on the look out for more recipes with it. Enter pumpkins cardamom muffins.

Now I’m no food blogger (shoutout to those of you that are and thank you inspiring so many of our dinners!), but this pumpkin recipe is ah-mazing. I was even a little extra (not surprising) and set up a whole photo shoot as I baked away to my heart’s content. Layla was snoozing and it was good practice with my new camera, so in the words of Hilary Duff, why not?!

If you aren’t a huge sweet fan, but enjoy the taste of pumpkin, these muffins are for you. They’re more “spicy” and flavorful than sugary sweet. If you do have a sweet tooth (holla!), then you can drizzle either honey or maple syrup on top once they are finished cooling. Pair them with some in-season fruit or a protein shake for breakfast or eat them alone for a snack!

If you’re part of the Gram Fam, you might have seen that I’m trying to keep an eye on my dairy intake since I’m breastfeeding. Too much dairy tends to upset both mine and LJ’s tummy! I made this recipe dairy free by swapping the milk for unsweetened vanilla almond milk and the butter for coconut oil. Feel free to keep the milk and the butter if that’s more your taste!

The cinnamon I used is freshly ground bark from trees in Vietnam. This is ten times more flavorful than regular store-bought cinnamon! I use it in yogurt, oatmeal, smoothies, and in many of my bakery dishes. It’s not ground as finely as it could be because I just used a regular Ninja to grind it up which works well enough for me, but if you have a spice grinder I would recommend you use it!

Gosh, I could actually talk all day about pumpkins and fall baking. Chris compares me to the fall version of Will Ferrell’s Elf! Enough from me though – Download the recipe below and get to baking! Once you’re finished, post a photo on Instagram and tag me so I can see your pumpkin creation!

‘Tis the season of pumpkins!