Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

The boys and I are heading over to the house of some new friends this morning. 

We cannot go empty-handed! 

I searched my favorite food blogs for a good pumpkin cream cheese muffin. 

I found this one over at Annie's Eats.  It's a yummy pumpkin and spice batter with a surprise center of sweetened cream cheese.

I started right in on the measuring and mixing before reading through the entire recipe (a big no-no!). 

I then noticed that the cream cheese and powdered sugar mixture has to be rolled in a "log" and frozen for at least two hours.

STINK!  What to do?  I had to be at my friend's house in two hours.

Enter my favorite kitchen term:  MODIFICATION!

I just "sandwiched" scoops of the cream cheese mixture between scoops of batter. 

And topped with yummy struesel...

It worked just fine!

But I will try the recipe again in the future and do it as she suggests.

This recipe makes 24 regular muffins or 18 regular muffins plus 12 mini-muffins.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

For the filling:
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 (about one can)
1¼ cups vegetable oil

For the topping:
½ cup sugar
5 tbsp. flour
1½ tsp. ground cinnamon
4 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.

(Ginny's note: Due to time constraints, I didn't freeze the filling.  But if you have time, by all means do it!)

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.

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. 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!)

From:  Annie's Eats