Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Gold Muffin Liners! Over the last few days, I've been thinking about adding cream cheese as one of my favorite food groups. However, I realized it would be a slippery slope - and would have to add butter, chocolate, and cheese as their own food groups too. . . you understand how things would get complicated. One thing that remained simple and delicious was this recipe. Plus, I was on the hunt for new baking goodies and found these awesome gold muffin liners! Bonus! If you haven't already, you should check out the blog Annie's Eats linked below. It's a phenomenal professional blog that I often get some of my cooking inspiration from. With practice I hope to get better with everything with my own blog! I'm so glad that you've been following along and maybe even passing on some recipes to your friends :) Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins Adapted from http://annies-eats.net/ Makes 24 muffins. Ingredients: Filling: 8 oz. softened cream cheese 1 cup confectioners’ sugar 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 1¼ cups vegetable oil Adding the cream cheese mixture 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. Make sure you let this chill for 4 or more hours - I would suggest doing it the night before to ensure it is well frozen. When I made mine it was a bit of a mess because I only let it chill for 2 hours. Preheat the oven to 350.  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 a small bowl mix 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 (about 1/2 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 small amount of the topping mixture over each of the muffins. Bake for 25 minutes.  Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely before serving.  AMAZING. If I had to rate the two pumpkin recipes this week - I'd have to say that I think I like this one more... that cream cheese centre is heaven!  Don't forget your topping!