pumpkin cheesecake muffins with toffee crunch recipe

When the girls were little they didn’t like pie crust so I was constantly on the hunt for pumpkin recipes that didn’t involve a pie plate. Old habits die hard. It’s fall, pumpkins are spilling over at road-side stands and I just found the most delicious pumpkin muffin recipe on the planet! It’s a knock-off of the Starbucks’s cream cheese filled pumpkin spice muffin. There are tons of them on the internet. This is mine…

Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins with Toffee Crunch – adapted from many versions
Preheat the oven to 350*F.

Cream Cheese Filling:

8 oz. cream cheese, softened
½ cup icing/confectioner’s sugar
Beat well then place on a piece of wax paper and shape into a cylinder about 1 ½ inch in diametre. Place the cream cheese roll in the freezer for 1 hour. When chilled, slice into 18 equal pieces.

Toffee Crunch:

½ cup Skor bits
½ cup raw pumpkin seeds
¼ cup sugar
½ teaspoon cinnamon
Toss together in a bowl

Muffins:

1 (398 ml) can pumpkin puree
½ cup sugar
½ cup brown sugar
1 cup canola oil
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 cups flour
1 teaspoons cinnamon
¼  teaspoon nutmeg
¼ teaspoon allspice
¼ teaspoon ginger
¼ teaspoon cloves
2 teaspoon baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
In the bowl of your stand mixer, blend the pumpkin, sugar, oil, egg and vanilla.
In another bowl, stir together the dry ingredients then add to the pumpkin mixture and mix just until combined.
Fill paper-lined muffin cups.
Spoon 2 tablespoons of the batter into the paper lined cups.
Place a piece of the cream cheese filling in each muffin cup then completely cover with more batter.
Sprinkle the muffin tops with crunch topping.
Bake for 25 minutes.
Transfer to a wire rack to cool.

Makes 2 dozen muffins or 1 regular dozen and 1/2 dozen jumbo.

THE LOVE: I use my stand mixer to beat the sugar and egg mixture but I fold the flour in by hand. It gives me peace of mind that my muffins will be tender! I love the look of over-sized muffins so I made a dozen regular muffins and half a dozen jumbos. The larger muffins take longer to cook. Use a toothpick inserted in the centre of the muffin to check that it’s completely cooked.

printable recipe

one year ago: homemade brown sugar

two years ago: raspberry jalapeno jelly

Thanks for reading.