Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

I love fall if only for the excuse to eat pumpkin in everything (and because it's finally becoming liveable in Houston).  The original recipe from here instructs you to freeze the cream cheese/sugar mixture in a thin log and then cut off frozen log pieces to put in the middle of the muffin mixture.  My thoughts:  I'm never going to plan far enough ahead to actually freeze the cream cheese.  I just used two spoons and plopped a spoonful of cream cheese in between two layers of muffin batter and it worked just fine.

Muffins:

3 cups flour

1 tsp. cinnamon

1 tsp. nutmeg

2 tbsp pumpkin pie spice

1 tsp. salt

1 tsp. baking soda

4 eggs

1 ¼ C oil

2 cups sugar

2 cups pumpkin puree

Filling - whip together until well combined:

8 oz. cream cheese, softened (I used 1/3 less fat cream cheese)

1 cup powdered sugar

Streusel Topping - Mix together with a pastry blender until crumbly:

½ cup sugar

¼ cup and 1 tsp. flour

4 tbsp. butter, cubed

1 ½ tsp. cinnamon

To make the muffins, combine the flour, spices, salt and baking soda. Set aside. Using an electric mixer, combine the eggs, oil, sugar and pumpkin puree.  Mix until well combined.  Add in the dry ingredients and stir together until just combined (a little lumpy is fine).

Fill each muffin well with enough muffin batter to cover the bottom.  Drop a spoonful of cream cheese into each muffin well, on top of muffin batter.  Top cream cheese with more muffin batter until tins are a little over 3/4 of the way full.  Sprinkle the streusel topping over the top of the batter. Bake for 20-25 minutes at 350.

 Makes 24+ muffins.

Again, thanks to Baked Perfection for this delicious recipe.