Butternut squash muffins with whipped coconut cream and wild salal berry spread

These lightly-spiced butternut squash muffins are flavorful and moist while being both dairy-free and gluten-free.  We limited the sugar in the butternut squash muffin recipe to balance the sweetness from the whipped coconut cream and wild salal berry spread. 

Butternut squash muffins

We followed My Baking Addiction's recipe to make the muffins, with a few adjustments:

• we completely omitted the white sugar to make slightly more savory muffins with sweetness provided by the 1/2 cup of brown sugar and the butternut squash itself
• we opted for Bob's Red Mill's 1-to-1 baking flour
• we poured the batter into muffin tins rather than a loaf pan and reduced the baking time to about 25 minutes.

Whipped coconut cream

After the muffins cooled, we topped them with whipped coconut cream.  This was quick and easy to make after placing a can of coconut milk in the fridge the night before.  Minimalist Baker wrote a great guide to the best brands of coconut milk to use and how to make whipped coconut cream.

Wild salal berry spread

Finally, we dropped a dollop of wild salal berry spread onto the center of each cream-topped muffin and used the back of a spoon to spread it, creating a marbling effect with the coconut cream.  Find our classic wild salal berry spread here.