Pumpkin cream cheese muffins are easy to make and scrumptious for breakfast. A moist pumpkin muffin with a sweet and creamy filling.
Welp, my baby turned 5 yesterday. It was a whirlwind day with school, back-to-back soccer practices, birthday phone calls, and birthday dinner (and then a sigh of relief from me!). Little Nutmeg seemed to love every minute of it – from reading her favorite book (Dragons Love Tacos) at school to her special dinner request: Pad Thai. Several people chuckled when they heard her dinner request, but after all, she is my kid! It wasn’t too long ago that her big sister requested Moroccan chicken tagine for her birthday dinner! I’ll make foodies out of them yet.
Little Nutmeg also likes to gobble up these muffins, requesting more cream in each bite. And I don’t blame her. Pumpkin cream cheese muffins have long been one of my favorites, ever since I discovered them at the Black Dog Bakery on the Vineyard. As a kid, I always ate the cream cheese filling first. Now I like to savor a little with each bite. These are delicious and relatively easy: the filling has just 3 ingredients and the muffin batter can be mixed by hand. If you’re in a hurry, skip the topping.
- ¼ cup all-purpose flour
- 2 Tbsp. packed brown sugar
- 2 Tbsp. old-fashioned rolled oats or quick oats (not instant)
- ½ tsp. cinnamon
- 2 tablespoons butter, chilled
- 1 cup (8-ounce package) cream cheese, at room temperature
- ¼ cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1 cup pumpkin purée
- 2 large eggs
- ½ cup brown sugar
- 3 tablespoons canola oil
- ¼ cup dark corn syrup or honey
- ½ teaspoon salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon baking powder
- ½ teaspoon baking soda
- ⅓ cup milk
- 1½ cups all-purpose flour
- Preheat oven to 400F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with papers and spray with a bit of cooking spray. Set aside.
- To make the topping, combine the flour, oats, brown sugar and cinnamon in a bowl. Cut the butter into small pieces and then use your fingers to squeeze the butter into the other ingredients until coarse crumbs form. Set aside.
- To make the filling, stir together the cream cheese, sugar and vanilla until thoroughly mixed.
- To make the muffins, stir together the pumpkin, eggs, brown sugar, oil, dark corn syrup, salt, cinnamon, cloves, ginger, baking powder, baking soda and milk in a mixing bowl until well-combined. Add the flour and stir until there are no lumps.
- Put about 2 tablespoons of batter in the bottom of each muffin tin. Top with 1 heaping tablespoon of the filling and then another 2 tablespoons of the batter. Divide the topping over the muffins.
- Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until a tester inserted near the side comes out clean. (Don't insert it in the middle; you'll just get cream cheese!)
- When cool enough to handle, remove from pan and cool on a rack.
Looks very familiar to Grammy. They’re on my bucket list.