Play With Your Food

More Than a Pumpkin Muffin

My daughter is a huge fan of pumpkin muffins. They are one of her favorite fall breakfasts.  A couple years ago, I started making them regularly… but in true play with your food fashion, found myself modifying the recipe to make it not only a little healthier with the addition of whole grains, but also more scrumptious with the addition of a cream cheese swirl. I know, I know… it is like ordering a diet coke to go with chocolate layer cake, but…

Anyway, what we ended up with is super yummy pumpkin cream cheese swirl muffins. Suitable for breakfast, snacks and bribes. We think they are marvelous, but try them out and let us know what you think!

Super Yummy Pumpkin Cream Cheese Swirl Muffins

Makes 24 muffins

Muffin Ingredients

• 2 cups flour
• 1 cup oat flour (you can substitute white flour for this if you prefer)
• 1 ½ cups sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• ½ teaspoon baking powder
• ¾ teaspoon salt
• 1 ½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
• ¾ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ½ teaspoon ground  cloves
• 3 eggs
• 1 (15 or 16 ounce) can of pumpkin
• 1 cup vegetable oil

Swirl Ingredients

• 1 block (8 ounces) cream cheese
• ¼ cup sugar
• 1 egg
• 1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon flour
• 2 teaspoons vanilla

 Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Put liners in muffin tins, or use baking pan spray to liberally grease them.
2. In a medium bowl, mix the dry ingredients (the first 9) together with a fork or whisk until blended.
3. In a large bowl, beat the eggs, then blend thoroughly with the pumpkin and oil. Gradually add the dry mixture in, stirring until it is all moistened.
4. Place all of the swirl ingredients in another medium bowl. Use an electric mixer to beat them together until the mixture is smooth and creamy.
5. Fill each muffin cup approximately half full with pumpkin mixture. Then, use a teaspoon to place a dollop  of cream cheese mixture in each cup. Top each muffin with more pumpkin mixture.
6. Use a table knife to gently draw through the batter in each muffin cup, to swirl the cream cheese into the pumpkin. You don’t want it well blended, just distributed a little.
7. Bake the muffins for 33-37 minutes, until a toothpick inserted in a muffin comes out clean (or with a couple crumbs, but no “goo”)

 Other variations

If you want to make just regular pumpkin muffins, this recipe is great for that, too. Just omit the “swirl” entirely and reduce the baking time by a couple minutes.

If you prefer to make this in 2 loaf pans, bake each loaf for about an hour and 15 minutes.

If you want to make these a little “healthier” or lower calorie, I’ve tried it with all of the following substitutions and they work just fine:

* Replace ¼ cup of the vegetable oil with ¼ cup applesauce

* Replace 2 tablespoons of the flour with 2 tablespoons ground flaxseed

* Replace up to  ½ cup of sugar in the pumpkin mixture with the same amount of an artificial sugar replacement (such as Splenda for Baking or Stevia in the Raw)

* Use “light” or low fat cream cheese instead of regular

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