Pumpkin Muffins with Cake Mix

Peak summer garden. The corn is chest-high — ten rows of Bodacious turning the backyard into a green corridor that Jack walks through every morning with the proprietary air of a landowner surveying his holdings. The tomatoes are setting fruit: green globes on every plant, the Mortgage Lifter producing tomatoes the size of softballs, the Sun Golds clustering like gold beads, the Brandywine taking its time because Brandywines are the slow learners of the tomato world but the best tasters, and Jack knows this, and Jack is patient.

The zucchini phase has begun. Two plants, as every year, producing enough zucchini to feed the street and then some. I've already left three on the Hendersons' porch. The Hendersons have learned to check their porch before dark. The zucchini appears silently, like a vegetable Santa Claus with an overproduction problem. I made zucchini bread — four loaves — and froze two and gave one to the mail carrier and ate one warm from the oven with butter while standing at the counter, because warm zucchini bread with butter is a religious experience that does not require a table.

I drove to Grinnell for a driveway visit. Lawn chairs, six feet, masks, the Iowa COVID protocol. Mom had made cinnamon rolls — of course, always, the cinnamon rolls are Marlene's greeting, her hello made of dough and sugar and the implicit statement that you are loved and you will be fed whether a virus approves or not. She brought them to the driveway on a plate. I ate one from six feet away and it tasted exactly right and the distance between us felt like six feet and six miles and six years, all at once, the distance measured not in feet but in the things I couldn't do — couldn't hug her, couldn't sit at her kitchen table, couldn't stand beside her at the stove.

Dad looked the same as last visit — thin but present, slow but moving. He told me the corporate soybeans were looking poor. "They're not managing the drainage," he said, with the specific disgust of a man who managed that drainage for forty years and can see, from his lawn chair, that his life's work is being mismanaged by people who don't know the soil. The disgust is healthy. The disgust means he still cares. I'll take disgust over resignation any day.

Standing at the counter eating that zucchini bread warm from the oven, butter melting into every slice, I understood again why Mom always shows up with cinnamon rolls — baking is the language we speak when words feel insufficient or the distance feels too large. These pumpkin muffins with cake mix have become my shortcut version of that same sentiment: something fast enough to make on a summer Tuesday, moist and spiced and generous enough to leave on a neighbor’s porch alongside whatever the zucchini plants have dropped this week. Same love, different loaf.

Prep Time: 10 minutes | Cook Time: 22 minutes | Total Time: 32 minutes | Servings: 24 muffins

Ingredients

1 box (15.25 oz) spice cake mix
1 can (15 oz) pure pumpkin puree
2 large eggs
1/3 cup water
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 cup raisins or chocolate chips (optional)

Instructions

Preheat oven. Heat oven to 350°F. Line two standard 12-cup muffin tins with paper liners or spray with nonstick cooking spray.
Mix batter. In a large bowl, combine the spice cake mix, pumpkin puree, eggs, water, vanilla extract, cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves. Stir until just combined — do not overmix. Fold in raisins or chocolate chips if using.
Fill the tins. Divide batter evenly among the 24 muffin cups, filling each about 2/3 full.
Bake. Bake for 20–22 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean and the tops spring back when lightly pressed.
Cool. Let muffins cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then transfer to a wire rack. Best eaten warm, with butter, standing at the counter — no table required.

Nutrition (per serving)

Pumpkin Muffins with Cake Mix — Baking Through the Abundance