Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Whenever the holidays roll around, I always buy cans of pure pumpkin, with no specific use in mind.

I figure inspiration will eventually hit me.

Well, I actually forgot that I bought the cans of pumpkin.  Thanksgiving came around, and I ended up making these Cranberry Cream Cheese Bars.

It wasn't until I saw Nadia post a bunch of Pumpkin goodies on Instagram did I remember I had pumpkin too!

Since my kids are always ravenous when they get home from school (and they are sick of all the leftover candy we still have from Halloween!!), I decided to make muffins.

The muffins were so scrumptious!  I loved that the pumpkin flavor was not too strong, and I purposely did not mix the cheesecake mixture until smooth - I love cheesecake and I wanted to bite into chunks of that creamy goodness.  So delish!

I don't normally like sweets for breakfast (I'm more of an eggs & bacon kinda gal), but I often found myself eating these Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins for breakfast!

Next time I'm making a double batch so I can freeze some!


Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Ingredients:

• 1 3/4 c flour
• 1 T pumpkin pie spice
• 1 t baking soda
• 1/2 t salt
• 1 15 oz can pure pumpkin (I bought those gigantic 29 oz cans, so I simply used 1/2 of the large can)
• 1 c sugar
• 1/2 c packed brown sugar
• 2 large eggs
• 1/2 c vegetable oil
• 1 T vanilla extract 
• 8 oz cream cheese
• 1/4 c granulated sugar
• 1 large egg 
• 2 t vanilla extract

Directions:

• Preheat oven to 375°F. 
• In a medium bowl, mix together the flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda and salt.
• In a large bowl, mix together the pumpkin, sugar and brown sugar.
• Beat in eggs, vegetable oil and vanilla extract. 
• Slowly add the flour mixture, and stir until combined.  
• Fill paper-lined muffin tins 3/4 full.
• In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese, sugar, egg, and vanilla extract until smooth (or if you like chunks of cheesecake like I do, stir until just combined)
• Top each muffin with about 1 tablespoon of the cream cheese mixture and use a toothpick to swirl the cream cheese and muffin batter. 
• Bake muffins for 18-20 minutes.

If you want to make mini muffins, just bake for 10-13 minutes in a mini muffin pan.

Original recipe found here on The Novice Chef.