Thursday, November 11, 2010

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

4 comments:

Franky said...

yes, i saw this too and wanted to try it! your addition is great!

Anonymous said...

It tasted fantastic!

Anonymous said...

Straight to the point and well written! Why can’t everyone else be like this?

Henry said...

Well, it looks so tasty. I'll try this one at home with my kids. Now it's time to avail shutters in birmingham for more information.