Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins w/ Streusel!

While perusing many of my food blogs almost all insist and rave how great these muffins are.

I am a huge fan of anything with streusel, it is pumpkin season, and most everyone loves cream cheese…so I thought this past weekend would be the perfect opportunity to try this recipe out!

Besides saving a few for myself, I brought a dozen over to my friend Cameron’s new place as a housewarming gift. As we were leaving for the night, Cam gave me a hug and said thanks again for the muffins, I replied, my pleasure! He then whispered…”I hope I get one though…because my roommate just ate four of them!”  : )

On Sunday our friend Rob had us over for a day at the beach, so as a thank you I brought him a dozen of these muffins as well.  Later that evening, as we were settling in for the night to watch a movie, Tyler’s phone went off…he laughed…and then showed me the text message he had just received from Rob: “Tell Marge I just ate 10 muffins…GOOD GOD these are good!”

So…YES…I DO highly recommend baking these for yourself to find out how great they are!

These muffins may seem as though there is a lot to them…but similar to the other pumpkin recipe below, they are quite simple… (they just look fancy)!

Again, I sort of made up my own cream cheese filling and batter using the many variations of this recipe I found; so here is another somewhat Sweet M.E. original!

Cream Cheese filling:                                                                                                           
1 (8 ounce) package cream cheese
1 egg
2 teaspoon vanilla
5 tablespoons brown sugar

1/3 cup powdered sugar

Streusel topping:
4 1/2 tablespoons flour
5 tablespoons white sugar
3/4 teaspoon cinnamon

1 tablespoon brown sugar
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons chopped pecans

Muffin ingredients:
2 1/2 cups flour (I used 1&1/2 cups white, 1 cup whole wheat)
2 cups sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
3 tablespoons cinnamon
1 tablespoon brown sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 eggs
1 15oz.canned pumpkin
1/3 cup vegetable oil
3 teaspoons vanilla

Directions

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

FILLING:

Beat cream cheese until soft. Add egg, vanilla and brown sugar. Beat until smooth. Set aside in fridge while preparing the muffin batter.

STREUSEL TOPPING: 

Mix flour, sugar, cinnamon, brown sugar and pecans. Add butter and cut it in with a fork until crumbly. Set aside.

MUFFIN BATTER: 

In a large bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, brown sugar and salt. Make a well in the center of flour mixture and gradually incorporate eggs, pumpkin, vegetable oil and vanilla. Beat together until smooth.

Fill cups with pumpkin mixture until they're about 1/2 full. Carefully add one tbsp of the cream cheese mixture right in the middle of the batter. If you're using paper cups, try to keep cream cheese from touching the paper. Sprinkle on the streusel topping.  Bake at 375 degrees for 10 to 20 minutes.

Pumpkin, cream cheese, pumpkin, streusel-bake!