Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Starbucks, you continue to inspire; inspire me to figure out the hidden secrets/recipes for your mouth-watering goodies, that is. This particular muffin has a special place in my recipe box seeing as though I pretty much love all things pumpkin, and even more so when they are not $5.00 a piece.

The girls and I got together for a “pumpkin party” early this fall and the idea was for each of us to bring a different pumpkin-inspired dish or dessert. I tossed around quite a few different ideas before committing to the task of trying to reproduce my favorite Starbucks treat.

It is definitely a bit more time consuming to make but well-worth it in the end. I used a combination of multiple recipes, intuition, and kept my fingers crossed for good luck! I am a true Italian baker, meaning I typically don’t measure, and I never use the exact same recipe twice. So what you have below is my attempt to recreate the muffins I made the first time. Enjoy!

**Tip: Mix and freeze the filling the night before so that it’s partially frozen and ready for your muffins.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins:

Ingredients:
For the filling:
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
½ cup confectioners’ sugar

For the muffins:
3 cups all-purpose flour
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
4 large eggs
2 ½ cups sugar
2 cups pumpkin pie mix (or puree- add pumpkin pie spice if using puree)
1¼ cups vegetable oil

1 tsp ground cloves (optional)

For the topping:
¼  cup sugar
2 Tbsp. flour
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
2 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 wax paper and shape into a log about 1” 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 somewhat firm, at least 6 hours.

To make the muffins, preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Line muffin pans with paper liners. In a medium bowl, combine dry ingredients- flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, pumpkin pie spice, salt, baking soda, and cloves (if you desire); whisk to blend. In the bowl of an electric mixer combine the eggs, sugar, pumpkin pie mix and oil. Mix on medium-low speed until blended. With the mixer on low speed, slowly mix small portions of the dry ingredients; do not over mix at this point. 

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 fork until the mixture is coarse and crumbly. Transfer to the refrigerator until ready to use. The streusel topping is not as chunky as the topping at Starbucks, but I think in this case less is more.

Fill each muffin liner with a small amount of batter, just enough to cover the bottom (2 Tbsp). 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 good amount of the topping onto each of the muffins.

Bake for 20-25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely before serving (the cream cheese will be boiling hot at first!!)