Cream Cheese Pumpkin Muffins

I enjoy creating new recipes and years ago I had an abundance of pumpkin so I began to experiment. This next recipe turned out to be a fan favorite, and it is my most requested baked good. In fact, all the muffins disappeared (and not by my consumption) before I could take a picture. I use fresh pureed pumpkin in this recipe, but you can easily substitute canned pumpkin.

Ingredients

2 cups flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp ginger

1/4 tsp cloves

1 1/2 cups sugar

3 eggs

3/4 cup vegetable oil

1 tsp vanilla

3 cups pumpkin

Cream Cheese Filling

8 oz cream cheese (room temperature)

1 cup powdered sugar

1 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Grease 2 -12 cup muffin tins. 

In a small bowl beat the cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla together until fluffy. Set aside.

Sift together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and spices.

In seperate bowl mix the sugar, eggs, oil, and vanilla. Incorporate the dry ingredients into the wet ones. Once fully incorporated, fold in the pumpkin. Place one spoonful of muffin mixture in each tin (enough to completely cover the bottom). Add a dollop of cream cheese to each muffin and fill with the remaining mix. Bake about 35 minutes. Let them cool about a minute and then place on a cooling rack until cool enough to eat. Caution.... the cream cheese filling will burn your lips if you don't wait at LEAST 5 minutes before you try one... but it is really hard to wait! =-)