Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Kesha — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 16:21:47 +0000

I can’t get enough pumpkin this season. Everywhere I turn, there it is and I want it. Maybe it’s the spice. Maybe it is the season. Maybe it is just all around too delicious to pass up. This is a case of the same.

I first had these muffins at a friend’s bridal shower. I found the recipe online and made them once as a dessert after a soup dinner this fall and then again for breakfast at our fall festivities at the office. I’ve tweaked the recipe along the way but have heard nothing but love for these little pumpkin delights. They look too big to enjoy alone, but after you start eating, the problem usually takes care of itself.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Adapted from Second Creek Farm Bed & Breakfast and published by Country Living

Makes 10 large muffins

Ingredients
cheesecake filling
8 ounces cream cheese, softened
1 egg
3 tablespoons sugar
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
streusel
5 tablespoons sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/4 cup pecans, chopped
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons butter, melted
batter
2 cups sugar
2 cups flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon all spice
1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
2 eggs
1-1/4 cups pumpkin puree
1/3 cup olive oil
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

make the filling

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees F. Butter and flour two 6-cup large muffin tins. Set aside. Using an electric mixer, stir the softened cream cheese until it is smooth. Add the sugar and cinnamon and mix until combined well. Then add the egg and mix until combined well.

make the streusel

In a small bowl, mix sugar, flour, pecans and cinnamon. Then drizzle on the melted butter. Toss together until it is evenly mixed and set aside.

make the batter

In a large, shallow bowl. Combine the sugar, flour, cinnamon, all spice, sea salt, baking powder and baking soda. In a separate large bowl, using an electric mixer beat the eggs, pumpkin, olive oil and vanilla together. Make a well in the center of the flour mixture and pour the pumpkin mixture into the well. Mix the ingredients together using a fork, just until combined.

build the muffins

Using a tablespoon, place two tablespoons of the batter in each muffin cup. Then place one tablespoon of cream cheese mixture in each muffin cup on top of the batter. Then top with two tablespoons of the batter. Top each muffin cup with the streusel, covering most of the batter. Bake for about 20-22 minutes or until a toothpick is inserted in the muffins and comes out clean. Then cool on wire racks.

Rhubarb Oat Muffins

Mara — Thu, 01 Jul 2010 13:03:27 +0000

I know for most people rhubarb season starts in the early spring. For me though, I just can’t think of rhubarb at any other time than right now. That’s because every year, around the middle of the summer, we head north up to my grandparent’s home where there’s always a fresh supply just-picked rhubarb and baked goods featuring the vibrant reddish green stalks.

In fact, my grandpa has quite the garden full of it. I am quite enamored with his rhubarb and his many other plants, the fresh raspberry jam is a whole other post…I guess that it makes sense for a retired farmer to have such a prolific garden. Anyway, one of my favorite times is to see him out in the garden, picking rhubarb and so naturally telling stories and chuckling.

So this recipe is one that comes from my grandma, from the abundance of rhubarb she’s faced with each year. I’ve tried to adapt it and improve upon it many, many times. So many, in fact, that I actually lost the original recipe. I’ve finally got the original back, and this time I modified it with oats and oat flour in a way that I’m definitely loving. Especially since baking with different flours has been on my mind lately after purchasing Kim Boyce’s Good to the Grain: Baking with Whole-Grain Flours.

Rhubarb Oat Muffins

adapted from my grandma

makes approx. 20-22 muffins

Ingredients

muffins
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup oil
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 cup buttermilk
3/4 cup rolled oats
3/4 cup oat flour
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1-1/2 cups rhubarb (I prefer the redder kind), stalks chopped into about 3/4-inch segments
1 cup pecans, roughly chopped
streusel topping
1 tablespoon butter
2 tablespoons rolled oats
3 tablespoons brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

Directions

make the muffins

Line two muffin pans with muffin liners, and set aside. Pre-heat oven to 500 degrees F.

In a medium bowl, mix together by hand brown sugar, oil, egg, vanilla and buttermilk. In a large bowl, whisk together oats, flours, baking powder, baking soda and salt. Pour the wet mixture into the dry mixture, gently incorporating just enough until ingredients are combined together. Be careful not to over-mix. Then, add in rhubarb and the pecans.

make the streusel topping

In a small bowl, stir together melted butter, oats, brown sugar, cinnamon and ginger. The topping should be slightly wet and form a coarse, slightly sticky meal. Adjust butter amount if needed.

finish the muffins

Pour the batter in lined muffin pans, filling each cup about 3/4ths full. Sprinkle the topping over each filled muffin pan. Place muffins in oven and immediately drop oven temperature to 400 degrees F (dropping the temperature like this will help with their rise since oat flour tends not to rise as well) . Bake at 400 degrees F for 11-13 min., or until a toothpick comes out clean. Once muffins have cooled slightly, remove them from the muffin tin and place them on a cooling rack.

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Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins