Feeding an Army

Over 100 delicious homemade muffins in less than an hour and a half! I’d call that a victory!

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For a little while now, I’ve been working to bring up participation in our company’s family readiness group. The group started out extremely strong and with great participation, but as families have PCS’d we haven’t been able to successfully fill their voids.

At a recent meeting with some of my volunteers, it was suggested that maybe I bribe encourage some Soldiers to come around if I made them treats. So that’s exactly what I did.

Last week, the company came back from the field, so as they were unloading the trucks and turning in their weapons, there I was with nine dozen muffins. Prior to making the muffins, I had no idea how I was going to be able to bake enough of anything to feed over 100 people. And that’s when the idea hit me.

A friend who recently PCS’d and left a void in my heart, used to make these muffins using boxed cake mix, pumpkin, eggs, and water. I believe they’re a point or two on the Weight Watchers system, which is perfect for those trying to pass PT tests. When I text her asking how she did it, the measurements were a bit more complicated than I was hoping for. Actually, I was hoping for no measurements, so I went with no measurements.

The thing that turned me off from wanting to just follow the directions on the box of cake mix was that I’d have to measure out oil. If I wanted to knock out a hundred something muffins, there was no time for measuring oil. Plus, the amount of oil that goes into those things is INSANE!

SO! All it takes for the scrumptious muffins that I made is a box of cake mix, a 16 ounce can of pumpkin, 2 eggs, and just enough water to swirl around the bottom of the pumpkin can to get the excess pumpkin out. I’m not about exact measurements. I went with 2 eggs, due to an image I saw on Pinterest dealing with eggs and density of cakes. Super scientific.

To add some variety, I did a couple different flavors of muffin. Using a boxed spice cake mix, resulted in a pumpkin spice cake. Plain old white cake got you pumpkin muffins. And using a chocolate cake mix with some chocolate chips tossed in resulted in a pumpkin chocolate chip muffin.

To get each batch done a little faster, I bought a beast of a muffin pan while picking up my ingredients. Seriously, a 24-cup muffin pan might be one of the most useful kitchen inventions ever.

I tried each of the muffins and was extremely pleased! They were light and moist. Apparently, the Soldiers loved them too, because according to John, they were gone pretty quickly. Being that they were so easy to make, I plan on taking some more to the company. They’ll likely become a staple in our household for the entire season as well! Pumpkin everything, amiright?!