Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Our Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins are the perfect Fall breakfast – sweetly spiced tender pumpkin muffins with a surprise filling of cream cheese. Who wouldn’t love biting into one (or two!) of these little pumpkin muffins?

I’ve gotten a few emails from readers over the last week or so after they see one of my pumpkin recipes asking why I don’t share pumpkin all year.

After all, pumpkin is a healthy food that’s low in calories and it tastes good regardless of the season.

I mean, I couldn’t agree more. I actually bake pumpkin pies throughout the year when the craving hits.

I just don’t tell people about it because PEOPLE HAVE FEELINGS.

If you’ve never been a food blogger, you’ve never experienced the anger that gets sent your way when you share an “out of season” recipe and people firmly believe that pumpkin season is September through November. 

I sneak them in in August to a lot of “it’s too early” replies, but I’m sorry, I can’t wait any longer.

So, don’t yell at me, I might be early, but LOOK! Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins!

Ingredient Notes:

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For the muffins:

Wet Ingredients – You’ll need a few standard muffin mix ingredients including softened butter, buttermilk, and a couple large eggs.

Canned Pumpkin – Use 100% pure pumpkin puree! Make sure to not use canned pumpkin pie filling which has included spices and other ingredients.

Dry Ingredients – You’re also going to need white sugar, packed brown sugar, flour, baking soda, baking powder, and salt.

Pumpkin Pie Spice – Follow the link to try my homemade pumpkin pie spice! It’s a great way to get exactly the right flavor that you want, but you can keep it simple and use any bottled spices too!

For the cream cheese filling:

Cream Cheese – Start with softened cream cheese otherwise it’ll be too difficult to work with when mixing.

Sugar – For sweetening up the filling.

Vanilla Extract – Just a bit of vanilla for flavor with some sugar and cream cheese is all you need for this simple sweet cream cheese filling!

How To Make Muffin Mix:

Wet Ingredients: We’re going to start by creaming together our butter and sugar until it’s light and creamy. This helps incorporate air into the muffin so it’s light and fluffy instead of dry and dense.

Beat in your buttermilk, eggs, and pumpkin. 

Dry Ingredients: Next comes the dry ingredients: flour, baking soda, baking powder, and pumpkin pie spice! 

Stir that in by hand. Don’t overmix or your muffins will be tough.

Combine: Stir together some softened cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla extract in a mixing bowl. That’s pretty much all there is to preparing the sweet and creamy filling for the pumpkin muffins!

Assemble: To prepare the pumpkin muffins for baking start by dropping a tablespoon or two of the muffin batter into the wells of a lined muffin tin.

Filling: Next drop a teaspoon of the cream cheese filling over the muffin batter in each of the wells of the muffin tin.

Cover: Cover the cream cheese with the remaining batter and pop these guys into the oven.

These pumpkin muffins bake in about 25 minutes.

Let cool a bit before digging in!

FAQ’s:

• Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Bread: So moist and studded with bits of chocolate!
• Pumpkin Pancakes: The perfect start to a chilly morning!
• Pumpkin Cheesecake Bars: These look so impressive, but they’re really easy!
• Pumpkin Bombs: So easy to make in the air fryer!
• Pumpkin Crunch Cake: Everyone’s FAVORITE pumpkin recipe!
• Pumpkin Coffee Cake: Wait til you see that streusel!
• Keto Pumpkin Bars: A low carb option for a Fall dessert!

This post was originally published in September 2012.