Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

If you love pumpkin as much as I do make sure to also check out my cinnamon-sugar donut pumpkin muffins, sweet pumpkin streusel muffins or these pumpkin oatmeal muffins.

Key Ingredients

Below you will find helpful notes for key ingredients used to make this recipe for cream cheese pumpkin muffins. Scroll down to the recipe card below for the full ingredient list and exact amounts!

• Flour: All-purpose flour works best! Be sure to fluff the flour, then measure it by spooning it into a measuring cup. Don’t dip the cup straight into a packed bag of flour, or you will make overly dense muffins!
• Pumpkin Puree: I use a 15 oz can of pumpkin. Make sure it is pure pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling which is already sweetened.
• Sugar: I use a combination of granulated sugar and light brown sugar for the best consistency and sweetness, but you can use just one kind of sugar if you prefer.
• Vegetable Oil: For an extra-moist muffin I recommend using oil, however you can use melted and slightly cooled butter instead.
• Cream Cheese: Use full-fat cream cheese (not low fat) for the best taste and texture.
• Egg Yolk: This is used for richness and to help with the texture of the cream cheese swirl.
• Pumpkin Spice: To make your own, combine 4 tsp cinnamon, 2 tsp ginger, 1 tsp cloves, 1/2 tsp nutmeg and 1/2 tsp allspice. If you don’t have all the ingredients on hand, you can also use just cinnamon and a pinch of nutmeg instead!

• Dry Ingredients: Whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, pumpkin spice, baking soda and salt.
• Wet Ingredients: Whisk to combine the pumpkin, sugar and brown sugar. Beat in eggs, vegetable oil and vanilla extract.
• Combine: Slowly whisk the flour mixture into the pumpkin mixture, until there are no lumps. Do not over stir, just until the batter comes together. Fill paper-lined muffin tins 3/4ths of the way full.

• Cream Cheese Mixture: In a medium bowl, beat cream cheese until smooth. Add in sugar, egg yolk and vanilla extract and beat until well combined.
• Swirl: Top each muffin with about 1 tablespoon of the cream cheese mixture and use a toothpick to swirl it into the batter. You can also just drop it by rounded spoonfuls to the centers of the muffin batter, swirling is optional!
• Bake: Bake muffins for 18 to 20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the pumpkin party comes out mostly clean with just a few moist crumbs stuck to it.

Chef’s Tips & Variations

• Caution: Don’t overfill cups with muffin batter as the cream cheese dollop will make up some of the volume.
• Room Temperature Ingredients: It’s important for the eggs and cream cheese to be at room temperature so they combine smoothly and the cream cheese mixture swirls easily into the top of the muffins. To speed up the process, eggs can rest in a bowl of warm water and cream cheese can be cut into small cubes.
• Don’t Over-Mix: Combine the dry ingredients with the wet ingredients gently, just until combined. If you over stir the batter, it can overdevelop the gluten and cause dry muffins.
• Dollop: Don’t have time to swirl the cream cheese into the top of each muffin? Try adding a dollop of the cream cheese filling to the center of the batter instead.
• Add Nuts: You can stir chopped pecans or walnuts into the muffing batter or sprinkle the tops with pepita seeds, also known as pumpkin seeds.
• Bake A Loaf: If you would prefer to bake a loaf of bread instead of muffins, head over to my pumpkin cream cheese bread. It’s the same recipe, but baked into a loaf!