Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

As Starbucks introduced the Pumpkin Spice Latte last week, officially ushering in the autumn season, I began dreaming of lovely fall things to concoct- like soups and pies and pumpkin flavored anything. Thankfully, every other food blogger had the same idea. And so, armed with a recipe from Annie's Eats, I ran to the store to gather my supplies.

Apparently everyone in the south Austin area had the same idea because H-E-B was cleaned out of regular pumpkin puree. So I grabbed the last couple of cans of organic pumpkin puree and got started!

I made these Saturday as a breakfast treat for my students Sunday morning, and even though my students can be very picky sometimes, they all loved these!

These are a knock off of a Starbucks muffin. I've had it before and I have to say, these are better. Now, these muffins take a little preparation and may be a little more time consuming than normal ones but I thought they were worth the extra effort of including the filling and topping. 

For two dozen muffins, you will need:

For the filling:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar 

For the muffins:
3 cups  flour
1 tsp.  cinnamon
1 tsp.  nutmeg
1 tsp.  cloves
1 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
4 large eggs
2 cups sugar
1½ cups pumpkin puree
1¼ cups vegetable oil

For the topping:

¼ cup sugar

2 heaping tbsp. flour
1 tsp.  cinnamon
2 tbsp. cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Directions:
To prepare the filling, combine the cream cheese and confectioners’ sugar in a medium bowl and mix well until blended and smooth.  Transfer the mixture to a piece of plastic wrap and shape into a log about 1½-inches in diameter.  Smooth the plastic wrap tightly around the log, and reinforce with a piece of foil.  Transfer to the freezer and chill until at least slightly firm, at least 2 hours. (I left my mine overnight.)

To make the muffins, preheat the oven to 350˚ F.  Line muffin pans with paper liners or, if like me you don't have any, just spray generously with cooking spray.  In a medium bowl, combine the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, pumpkin pie spice, salt and baking soda; whisk to blend.  In the bowl of an electric mixer combine the eggs, sugar, pumpkin puree and oil.  Mix on medium-low speed until blended.  With the mixer on low speed, add in the dry ingredients, mixing just until blended.

To make the topping, combine the sugar, flour and cinnamon in a small bowl; whisk to blend.  Add in the butter pieces and cut into the dry ingredients with a pastry blender or two forks (or your hands) until the mixture is coarse and crumbly. Transfer to the refrigerator until ready to use.

To assemble the muffins, fill each muffin well with a small amount of batter, just enough to cover the bottom of the liner (1-2 tablespoons).  Slice the log of cream cheese filling into 24 equal pieces.  Place a slice of the cream cheese mixture into each muffin well.  Divide the remaining batter among the muffin cups, placing on top of the cream cheese to cover completely.  Sprinkle a small amount of the topping mixture over each of the muffin wells.

Bake for 20-25 minutes.  Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely before serving.  (It may be hard to resist immediate consumption, but the cream cheese filling gets very hot!)

And voila! Enjoy. And enjoy the way that your house smells while they're baking.

Recipe adapted from Annie's Eats, originally from BakeSpace