The MUFFINS!
It's fall, and I really would prefer summer, but I'm adjusting, and everything pumpkin sounds delicious! Decided to make pumpkin cream cheese muffins because I had all of the ingredients already in the house (well-- I thought I did, but I was 1/2 cup short on the flour, so I had to go to the store!). Here is the recipe and lots of pictures...It makes 24 muffins.
Filling:
8oz. of cream cheese, softened (It's one package from the box)
1 cup powdered sugar
Muffins:
3 cups of flour
1.5 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp baking soda
4 large eggs
2 cups of sugar
1.25 cups vegetable oil
Topping:
1/2 cup sugar
5 tbsp flour
2 tsp cinnamon
5 tbsp cold unsalted butter, chopped into pieces
Pumpkin seeds (optional- I used one small package)
Make the filling ahead of time! It needs to be in the freezer for at least 2 hours. Combine the cream cheese and powdered sugar in a medium sized bowl until smooth with a mixer. Put the mixture on a piece of saran wrap and make a 1.5 inch log. Wrap it again in foil, and stick it in the freezer.
Preheat oven to 350 degrees (making the mix and filling the tins etc, to me a lot longer than it took for the oven to preheat, so you don't have to preheat it right away). Line 24 muffin tins with paper liners. In a medium bowl, combine the first 6 ingredients with a whisk until mixed. In a separate bowl, combine the rest of the muffin ingredients on low-medium speed until blended. With the mixer on low, slowly mix the dry ingredients in, just until they are incorporated.
For the topping, mix all of the dry ingredients except pumpkin seeds until combined. Then, add the butter in with 2 forks or a mixer until crumbled. Keep it in the fridge until ready to use.
Fill the muffins tins just enough to cover the bottom (1-2 tbsp). Slice the log of cream cheese fillling into 24 equal pieces. Place a piece of the filling in each muffin tin. (I didn't leave mine in the freezer long enough to slice it, so I just spooned it in, trying to keep each spoonful the same size.) Divide the rest of the batter into the muffin tins. It should cover the cream cheese filling completely. Sprinkle a little of the topping mixture on top of each muffin. Sprinkle pumpkin seeds on top.
Bake 20-25 minutes. Take the muffins out of the tins (I use 2 forks), and cool on a wire cooling rack (or on the counter if you don't have one). Make sure to let them cool before you try them, because the filling gets really hot!
It's best to take the cream cheese out ahead of time to soften, but my microwave has a 'soften cream cheese' setting that I used.
Lined muffin tins
My cream cheese filling "log"
Dry mixture for muffins
Muffin mix!
Topping- before crumbled
Bottom layer of muffin mixture
Cream cheese filling
Up close
Crumbled muffin topping
Muffins ready for topping
With the topping & pumpkin seeds-- ready for the oven!
Done!!
The one I ate
Yummy cream cheese filling
