Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

A few years ago, when the ‘pumpkin spice latte’ craze came on the scene, I was looking for a recipe with pumpkin to bake, take and share with my women’s bible study group. I’m not a fan of pumpkin pie, AT ALL #teamsweetpotatopie, so that was out of the question. I saw a recipe, online (All Recipes), for these pumpkin cream cheese muffins and decided to give them a try. Anything with cream cheese is DELISH! I tweaked the recipe, to my liking, and they were a huge hit with my group. In fact, one of the ladies (shout out to Angela Compton .. wonder if she even remembers this) said, “These are like the breeze of October; the scent of November and the taste of Thanksgiving!” Now that’s a stamp of approval for ya! In fact, she was one of the people pushing me to take my cooking to the next level … a blog, cookbook … Thanks, Angela! 💗

Muffin Mix

2 1/2 cups of flour

2 cups of sugar

2 t baking powder

1 t ground cinnamon

1 t nutmeg

1 tsp ground cloves

1/2 t salt

2 eggs, beaten

1 1/3 cups of canned pumpkin

1/3 cup of pure olive oil (not EVOO) or vegetable oil

2 t vanilla extract

Filling

2 – 80z pkgs of cream cheese

2 eggs

2 t vanilla extract

2/3 cup of brown sugar

Streusel topping

9 T flour

10 T brown sugar

1 1/2 t ground cinnamon

8 T butter

10 T chopped pecans

Preheat oven to 375 degrees

For the filling, place the cream cheese in a bowl and mix until it is the consistency of sour cream; with a few lumps left in. Fold in the egg, vanilla and brown sugar and set aside.

For the streusel, mix the flour, sugar cinnamon and pecans in a separate bowl. Add the butter and cut it into the flour mixture with a fork until crumbly. Set aside.

For the batter, sift the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, nutmeg, ground cloves and salt in a large bowl. Make a well in the center and add the beaten eggs, pumpkin, oil and vanilla.  Mix until smooth.

Place the batter in muffin pans, about 1/3 of the way full.  Then, add 2 tablespoons of the cream cheese mixture in the middle of the batter.  Add more batter to make the batter reach half way up the muffin tin. Sprinkle 1 to 2 tablespoons of streusel topping on top of the batter.

Bake for 25 minutes.  This will make 12 extra large muffins

#yumola