Pumpkin Spice With Cream Cheese Muffins

This week I had a craving for one of my favorite muffins that I usually pick up at a coffee shop in my area.  But I thought to myself why not try a go at making those delicious muffins myself.  As I say let the experiment begin!

Not sure on what ingredients I wanted to use.  I had to think for a moment about it and this is what I came up with.  Just to let you know I like to mix and match recipes that I used in the past from other desserts.

Recipe

Muffin mixture

1 box of spice cake mix

1 cup of water

1/3 cup of oil

3 eggs

1 can of pure pumpkin 15oz

Cream Cheese Filling

1 pkg of 8oz cream cheese (soften at room temp.)

1/4 cup of sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup of condense milk

Make sure to heat oven to 350 before you get started so it has time to warm up and line a muffin pan with cupcake liners or not its your choice.  This recipe will yield 24 muffins.

Let start by making the muffin mixture first:

Combine cake mix, water, oil, and eggs.  Blend together with a hand mixer on medium speed until the batter is smooth.  Next step is to add the pumpkin.  I suggest folding it in by a hand spatula not the hand mixer so the batter can stay fluffy.  Set aside until your ready to fill the muffin pans.

In a separate bowl combine cream cheese and sugar blend together, once whipped together add egg and condense milk.  It will look runny but don't worry it will work.

Now its time for the magic:

Fill muffin pans with batter, like you would cupcakes.  After that is down it time to add the cream cheese filling.  This is the tricky part to the recipe.  I used a table spoon measure to help with this part.  Scoop a table spoon of the cream filling and insert into the center of the muffin like you are pushing down and release.  Repeat one more time so you get a good portion of the cream filling in the center.  

It's time to bake:

Place muffins in the oven at 350 bake for 20-25 minutes.  Depending on your oven they might bake faster or slower.  For me that would be slower since I have a 1950 wall oven.   

The end result was these moist yummy muffins.

*Just know that you can use nonfat, low fat, or substitute sugar for those that have dietary restrictions.

Still trying to come up with an idea for the teacher!

Each year I like to give my daughters teacher a simple gift for fall.  I hit up the dollar stores or stores that have dollar sections and look for fall items.

I keep it simple by purchasing items like fall leafs for decorating, note pads that are orange or fall print, an item that can sit on her desk like a small pumpkin.  I also purchase an orange pail to place these items in and bake cookies which only add up to a few dollars.  I like doing this to let the teacher know that we appreciate what she does.