Pumpkin Cream Cheese Filled Muffins!

These ARE decadent. I actually found this recipe via Pinterest.com and I've been dying to try it.  Having some family over for our NYC Marathon Breakfast seemed like a perfect opportunity.  These really were perfectly moist and delicious, although, I did cut back on how much cream cheese filling I added to each muffin, and used barely any of the topping.  As usual with any recipe I seem to try, I didn't end up following the instructions to the T.  I'll detail some of my personal comments on the recipe at the bottom, and post the original recipe so you can make your own decisions, but don't make any mistake about how great these turned out! Absolutely delicious!

 I actually prepped the cream cheese filling (which goes into the freezer) and the crumbly topping the day before, and they worked out perfectly.

 Of course, when I thought I was ready to pour everything into the muffin pans, I realized - I DON'T OWN MUFFIN PANS. Crazy, right? I knew I had cupcake pans and mini-cupcake pans, and even muffin liners (but no cupcake liners of course), so apparently I either lost my muffin pans or never owned any in the first place.  Which led me to sing "Oh can you find - the muffin pans! the muffin pans! the muffin pans!" all morning. (That will be stuck in your head for at least the next hour. You are welcome.) I had to run out to get fresh bagels so I just grabbed whatever they had at our grocery store.  No biggie.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
via Annie's Eats  (adapted from BakeSpace) (via Pinterest)

Yield: 24 muffins
Ingredients: 
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
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.

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. 

My suggestions on the recipe:
Although the yield says 24 muffins, I only managed to eek out about 14 muffins. For each muffin I used about 2 tablespoons of batter for the bottom, a 24th of the cream cheese logs, and then another 2 tablespoons of batter.  To me, it didn't look like enough batter when I was prepping.  I would definitely suggest only using 1 tablespoon for the bottom of the pan before adding your cream cheese, so you end up with more muffins, and also so that your cream cheese doesn't float up to the top of the muffins like mine did.

I would even consider cutting the cream cheese filling recipe in half if I made these again.  I ended up only using half of it since I ran out of batter, and the muffins were not lacking in filling in my opinion.

I would also consider cutting the topping recipe down to even a 1/4 of what is above.  I barely used any of it!  It certainly gave it a nice crunch and an extra kick of flavor, so I wouldn't scrap it entirely, but again, I barely used any of it and they still tasted great!