Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
I originally made these last week for our office parTAY but I think I made a double batch and then I got tired of making muffins so I bagged the rest. Whilst poking about the fridge, I found the batter again so I thought I’d make it up. Except I didn’t have enough to really do a whole batch of muffins, ergo the loaflets.
I yoinked this off of Allrecipes dot com because I had a tupper of last year’s pumpkin that I pulled and I didn’t want to make zucchini bread because I had made a double batch of that on the weekend. I also didn’t want to bake just pumpkin bread so I went looking for something tasty. This is what I found.
Ingredients
* 1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
* 1 egg
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
* 3 tablespoons brown sugar* 4 1/2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
* 5 tablespoons white sugar
* 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
* 3 tablespoons butter
* 3 tablespoons chopped pecans* 2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
* 2 cups white sugar
* 2 teaspoons baking powder
* 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
* 1/2 teaspoon salt
* 2 eggs
* 1 1/3 cups canned pumpkin
* 1/3 cup olive oil
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extractDirections
1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease and flour 18 muffin cups, or use paper liners.2. To make the filling: In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese until soft. Add egg, vanilla and brown sugar. Beat until smooth, then set aside.
3. For the streusel topping: In a medium bowl, mix flour, sugar, cinnamon and pecans. Add butter and cut it in with a fork until crumbly. Set aside.
4. For the muffin batter: In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Make a well in the center of flour mixture and add eggs, pumpkin, olive oil and vanilla. Beat together until smooth.
5. Place pumpkin mixture in muffin cups about 1/2 full. Then add one tablespoon of the cream cheese mixture right in the middle of the batter. Try to keep cream cheese from touching the paper cup. Sprinkle on the streusel topping.
6. Bake at 375 degrees F (195 degrees C) for 20 to 25 minutes.
PRODUCTION NOTES
1. No pecans were harmed or used in this recipe.
2. This is a pretty involved recipe. It’s a pretty tasty recipe too so I am not yet decided if it is too much work for the tasty. It might be close, but I think it errs on the tasty side rather than the too much work side.
3. As it turns out, I did not have three plus cups of pumpkin, I had two plus cups of pumpkin. They tasted nicely of pumpkin so I expect that with more they would have tasted even better. The dough was also weirdly elastic-y, which I attribute to not enough pumpkin.
4. The cooking of these was weird. Because of the cream cheese hat, it’s hard to do the toothpick thing. My regular sized muffins went 22 minutes and probably could have stood another 3 minutes in the oven. I also made HUGE GIANT MUFFINS (see: too much batter) and they could have gone longer as well. The loaflets, on the other hand, went a little too long. Obviously I will have to make this recipe again and try to nail down a good cooking time. Mmmmm.
2009: Duct tape actually works pretty well for keeping the rain from seeping through your shoes but a new pair does that much better.
2008: I’m on a mission to find fun new things to cook either in my 3 quart casserole dish or in a 9 x 13 baking pan.
2007: JSFR: Calbee Tuna and Mayonnaise Sticks
2006: Welcome to the triple digit booniverse milestone.
2005: I think he makes a wonderful bimbo. After all, he let everyone smell his meat.
2004: That’s what it boils down to and for kicks and giggles I wonder if all you who voted “Yes please! I do not want same sexed couples to have the right to marry!” would do me a favor. Substitute “black” or “Jew” or “mixed race” or “protestant” or “poor” for “same sexed” and read it to yourself.
2003: I’m just not fast enough in my head to spell out Q…U… before my hand begins impatiently making bumpity-bumps waiting for me to get to the rest of the name.