Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

By cmschnettler

Ingredients

• For the filling:
• Equipment: You’ll need on hand TWO regular muffin pans (that make a dozen each)
• 8 oz. cream cheese, softened
• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
• For the muffins:
• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1 tsp. ground cloves
• 1 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
• 1 tsp. salt
• 1 tsp. baking soda
• 4 large eggs
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups pumpkin puree
• 1 1/4 cups vegetable oil
• For the topping:
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 5 tbsp. flour
• 1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 4 tbsp. cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Details

Servings 24
Preparation time 150mins
Cooking time 175mins
Adapted from fullforkahead.com

Preparation

Step 1

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.This is also a step you can do ahead. The second time I made these I actually di this step the night before and they were fine and no harder to slice.

To make the muffins, preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Line muffin pans with paper liners. 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 incorporated. You might want to stir it a time or two with a spatula just in case all the dry ingredients didn’t get incorporated towards the bottom of the bowl.

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 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 – we made our log about 12-13 inches long and sliced about 1/4 thickness for each slice. Place a slice of the cream cheese mixture into each muffin well. Divide the remaining batter among the muffin cups (another 2 or so tablespoons), placing on top of the cream cheese to cover completely. Sprinkle a small amount of the topping mixture over each of the muffin wells. We used a cereal-size spoon for each muffin, using it all up.

Bake for 20-25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely before serving. DO let them cool down sufficiently, the cream cheese filling will be very hot.

Notes:

Refrigerate muffins

Don’t let the prep time scare you. Most of that is waiting for the cream cheese log to freeze. And remember you can even do that step the day before and save some time!