Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins

Bernice Baran
Oct 25, 2017
4 min read

People. These muffins... are everything. As you all know, I'm a little obsessed with fall. Fall weather, fall sweaters, fall boots, fall colors, fall dessert, etc. Now, I would never take credit for something that is not my own so I did get this recipe from The Novice Chef and I made them exactly as the recipes says except I added that delicious streusel on top and they came out amazinnggg. I will post the recipe down below and I will also include some mistakes I've made with these muffins, as I've made them like four times in a week lol. If you would like a little bite of heaven, stick around and learn how to make these muffins!

Of course I had to take pictures of my pink bowl (homegoods) and blue mixer !

Make sure your cream cheese is not too soft or it will just cover the whole top of the muffin and not make a pretty swirl. I left mine out for just a few minutes while I whipped up the batter and then I actually used a hand mixer to beat the cream cheese before adding anything to it.

This was my first time making the crumbs on top and it was really easy but they came out a little chunkier than planned but still very delicious! Everyone preferred the muffin with the crumb on top, I just love the way the swirl looks without the crumb lol.

As you can tell, I'm still using how to use this darn camera! These photos didn't come out the greatest but I think I'm improving lol, I think my pumpkin chocolate chip cookie pictures are show some progress!

PUMPKIN CREAM CHEESE SWIRL MUFFINS

YIELD: 18 muffins | PREP TIME: 12 minutes | COOK TIME: 18 minutes | TOTAL TIME: 30 minutes

INGREDIENTS:

Crumb:

1/3 cup brown sugar (light or dark)

3/4 cup all-purpose flour

1 ½ tsp. ground cinnamon

1/3 cup unsalted melted butter

Batter:

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour, sifted

1 tbsp. pumpkin spice

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 (15 oz) can pumpkin (pure pumpkin puree)

1 cup granulated sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar, packed

2 large eggs

1/2 cup vegetable oil

1 tbsp. vanilla extract

Cream Cheese:

8 oz cream cheese

1/4 cup granulated sugar

1 large egg yolk

2 tsp. vanilla extract

INSTRUCTIONS:

Preheat oven to 375°F. Place paper baking cups into muffin pan. Set aside.
Combine brown sugar, flour and cinnamon in a small bowl, then add melted butter and mix until separated into crumbs. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk flour, pumpkin spice, baking soda and salt until well combined. Set aside.
In large bowl, whisk together pumpkin, sugar and brown sugar.
Beat in eggs, vegetable oil and vanilla extract. Slowly whisk in the flour mixture, until there are no lumps. Fill muffin tins 3/4 full.
In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Add in sugar, egg yolk and vanilla extract and beat until well combined.
Top each muffin with about 1 tablespoon of cream cheese mixture and use a toothpick to swirl it into the batter. This will not look smooth, but it will bake up much prettier.
Bake muffins for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.

LOVE NOTES

Make sure you whisk together the pumpkin, sugar and brown sugar BEFORE adding the eggs and oil. This can result in a doughy, not fully baked muffin.
Make sure when you do beat in the eggs and oil, that you beat iT enough. There's no way to really tell when you've beat it enough, but give it a few minutes with the hand mixer. Not doing this could also result in a doughy, not fully baked muffin.
Do not soften your cream cheese before using it. It may be easier to work with when mixing in the other ingredients but it will be too soft to make a swirl in your muffin. I let the cream cheese sit out for a few minutes while making the batter and then I beat it with the hand mixer before beating in the sugar and egg yolk. I only have one muffin pan so I had to wait to bake my other six muffins and I refrigerated the cream cheese between bakes to keep it a little more firm.
If you don't have vegetable oil at home you can use any kind of oil really. I used canola oil, sunflower oil, and olive oil and they always came out the same.
When adding the crumb topping, be generous because the muffin will grow and the topping will spread out. On my second batch I almost doubled how much I put on top and it grew to be more even on top.

I had to include my 'eat cake for breakfast' house slippers since muffins are basically cake and I ate them for breakfast! :) My mom bought me these last year for my birthday and I LOVE them.

As always, if you have any comments, questions or suggestions, comment down below! Let me know how much you love these and if you've found a way to make these even better than they already are. I think I would like to try making them more bakery style, where the top is huge and puffy!