Cooking with Mom - Part 1; Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

My mom's in town!!! So we are doing a lot of baking & cooking, and trying a few new recipes.

After a few drinks out with Dante dressed up as Peter Pan, we came home to tackle these muffins. They were DELICIOUS!!!

Making the cream cheese filling...





Putting the filling in...




All done! With Dan's jack-o-lantern :)



Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Yield: 24 muffins

Ingredients:

For the muffins:

3 cups flour
1 tsp. cinnamon
1 tsp. nutmeg
1 tsp. ground cloves
1 tbsp. and 1 tsp. pumpkin pie spice
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. baking soda
4 eggs
1 ¼ cups vegetable oil
2 cups sugar
2 cups pumpkin puree

For the filling:

8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 cup powdered sugar

For the streusel topping:

½ cup sugar
¼ cup and 1 tsp. flour
4 tbsp. butter, cubed
1 ½ tsp. cinnamon

Directions:

To prepare the filling, combine the cream cheese and powdered sugar in the bowl of an electric mixer and whip until smooth. Form into a log on plastic wrap or foil, making sure that the diameter is small enough to fit into the well of a muffin pan. Wrap the log up tightly and freeze until slightly hardened, 1-2 hours. (We used foil, but we think wax paper would work best!!)

To make the muffins, combine the flour, spices, salt and baking soda in a medium bowl. Mix well and set aside. In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine the eggs, vegetable oil, sugar and pumpkin puree. Mix until well combined. Add in the dry ingredients and mix on low speed until just combined.

To make the streusel topping, combine all ingredients in a small bowl. Mix together with a pastry blender or two forks until crumbly.

Preheat the oven to 350°. Line two muffin pans with paper liners. To assemble the muffins, fill each muffin well halfway with batter. Remove the cream cheese log from the freezer and slice into 24 equal slices. Place a slice in each muffin well. Divide the remaining muffin batter evenly among the muffin cups, on top of the cream cheese. Sprinkle the streusel topping over the top of the batter. Bake for 20-25 minutes. Let cool completely before serving.

Mangia!!



We got this recipe from this blog

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffin Disaster

So Dan really wanted peanut butter chocolate chip muffins. He was practically begging me to make them. So we start making them only to realize we don't have any baking powder. No big deal, right?? Apparently it is. Unless you have a handy baking powder substitute such as molasses or cream of tartar (um, what?) you are screwed!!

We still ate them.



The finished product!!



Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Muffins
Ingredients:

2 ¼ cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking powder - very important!!!!
½ tsp. salt
2/3 cup brown sugar
6 tbsp. butter, melted and cooled
½ cup peanut butter
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
¾ cup chocolate chips

Preheat oven to 375°. Line a muffin pan with 12 paper liners.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and brown sugar. Set aside.

In a large bowl, whisk together the melted butter, peanut butter, eggs and milk until smooth. Add in the flour mixture and stir until just combined. Stir in chocolate chips. Divide batter evenly between prepared muffin tins, filling each to the top.

Bake for 17-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool for 5 minutes in the pan, then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.