Pumpkin muffins

I make pumpkin cookies every year, but I rarely take advantage of other pumpkin baked goods.
Last night I found a recipe for pumpkin bread on allrecipes.com. I was amazed at the positive 2000+ reviews, but appaled by the ingredients in the bread: 1 cup of oil, 3 cups of sugar, 4 eggs, etc. I am willing to indulge, but if I can modify, I'd much rather save my indulgences for something really special.
This recipe is completely adapted from the recipe I found. In addition, I turned these into mini muffins, topped half with a cinnamon swirl glaze and the other half with chocolate chips- yum.

Mini pumpkin muffins (or bread)*

Ingredients
1 15. oz can pumpkin puree
4 tablespoons flax + 4 tablespoons water
1 cup apple sauce
2 tablespoons healthy oil
2/3 cup water
1/2 squeezed orange
1 cup natural sugar
2 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1 1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (you can use cinnamon and nutmeg)

Unnecessary additions
1/2 cup chocolate chips (for half of the batter)
1 tablespoon earth balance
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Method
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
In a large bowl, mix together pumpkin puree, flax, applesauce, oil, water and sugar until well blended.
In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt and spice. Stir the dry ingredients into the pumpkin mixture until just blended.
Scoop half of the batter into mini muffin tins. (pre-greased or paper lined.) For sugar glaze- place butter, brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl, blend with fork. Top half of the muffins with the mixture.
For the other half of the batter, mix in chocolate chips and pour into muffin tins.
Bake for about 10-15 minutes in the preheated oven.

*If baking bread, put into loaf pans and cook for about 45-50 minutes.

Adapted from http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Downeast-Maine-Pumpkin-Bread/Detail.aspx