Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins

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If you've been a reader of this blog for any amount of time than you are already aware of my slight pumpkin obsession.  I can't resist a pumpkin based baked good. I've blogged about everything from my favorite pumpkin pie to pumpkin biscotti and pumpkin latte's. So it's Fall again and my obsession is back in full swing! 
A pumpkin roll (pumpkin sponge cake filled with a cream cheese filling) is one of my favorite Fall desserts. (I can't believe I haven't posted a recipe...soon!) These muffins have all the same components as a pumpkin roll, spicy pumpkin cake with a cream cheese swirl,  baked up in muffin form. Plus because it's a muffin it's now okay to eat  pumpkin roll it for breakfast, right?  

Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins
Yield: 1 doz. regular sized muffins or 2 doz. mini muffins
PRINTABLE RECIPE
MUFFINS:
1 15 oz can pumpkin puree, not pumpkin pie filling
1/4 cup coconut oil or any vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1/2 teaspoon salt

FILLING:
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 large egg yolk
1/2 cup sugar
1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract

METHOD:
Preheat oven to 350°
In a large mixing bowl, combine canned pumpkin, oil, and sugar together.
Add in eggs, one at a time, mixing well after each one.
Stir in vanilla.
Stir the flour mixture to liquids, combining thoroughly and scraping the sides of the bowl with a spatula until well combined.

Spray your muffin pan well with cooking spray. Fill each muffin about 2/3 full. Divide the filling evenly placing a large dollop on each muffin.

With a skewer or a knife, swirl the cream cheese mixture into the the pumpkin.

Bake for 20-25 minutes for regular muffins or about 18 minutes for mini muffins. The muffins are done when a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow to cool for 5 minutes and remove from the pan.

*NOTES: If you want you could top the muffins with chopped pecans or walnuts.  

I made half the batch in regular-size and half mini-sized. The mini muffins are very popable!

Links:

The Whatever Muffin

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  A while ago I bought some rice flour for a recipe (that I have yet to make BUT plan to soon!!). It's been hanging out in my pantry for a while now. I've pulled out a couple of time and thought I'd try baking with it but just haven't had a good idea of what to I wanted to make. So back in the cupboard it would go. I had a meeting yesterday with a friend that is sensitive to wheat so I pulled out the rice flour and decided to make her some muffins. I used Bob's Red Mill rice flour (I love their products) and had noticed a muffin recipe on the side of the package. I used that recipe as a guide but these muffins are simple to adapt to "whatever" you want. You can sub any liquid for the milk, soy milk, juice, water, whatever! Add nuts if you like or leave them out. Any kind of fruit will work, fresh, frozen, or dried. I like having options!!  I added a cinnamon sugar topping to mine because I love cinnamon and blueberries. You can't have a blueberry muffin without a cinnamon sugar topping! Well you can, but I'll take mine with the cinnamon please.

The Whatever Muffin (printable recipe)

Adapted from Bob Red Mill 
yield: 6 muffins

Ingredients:

1 large egg
1/2 cup milk (or liquid of choice, even just water)
2 tablespoons granulated sugar

2 tablespoons canola oil
1 cup white rice flour (brown rice flour can be substituted)
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons chopped nuts - whatever type you want (optional)
1/2 cup fresh or frozen fruit-any kind (I used frozen blueberries that I tossed in a little bit of the rice flour to keep them from sinking to the bottom of the muffins)

Optional topping:
1 tablespoon sugar
1/4-1/2 teaspoon cinnamon



Preparation:

Preheat oven to 425 degrees. Line 6 muffin cups with  paper liners or coat the cups with canola cooking spray, or use a silicon muffin pan. In large bowl, combine egg, milk or  liquid of  your choice, sugar, and canola oil, mix until smooth. Add the rice flour, baking powder, and salt. Mix until just until combined. Stir in nuts (if desired) and fruit of choice. If using; mix together the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Divide batter among the prepared 6 muffin cups. Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with the cinnamon and sugar mixture and bake for 15-17 minutes or until toothpick inserted in the center of largest muffin comes out reasonably clean.

I was really pleased with the resulting muffins. They were light and very tasty and I wouldn't have even known that they were wheat-free. They are so simple to make, one bowl, and easily adapted, I foresee many muffins in my future!

Pear Muffins

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I gone and done it again. Every time I swear to myself that this will be THE LAST TIME! But then in the heat of the moment, when my defenses are down, with such rational reasons running through my mind, I falter. I fall off the wagon, give into to the temptation. I have such good intentions how can it be wrong??? I blame it on Sam, really I can't be held responsible my actions with such temptations thrown at me around every corner. I'm way too weak! I know I've come here and confessed this many times before. I mean it each and every time. I WILL NOT buy more of a perishable item than I can use before it goes bad! I have good intentions and I reeeaally mean it at the time, but then I go into Sam's and what do they have there to taut me with, but the cutest little Seckel pears you've ever seen. I completely ignore the fact that they come in a 4 pound box. I'll make caramel dipped pears for that fruit tray I've got to make this week; is my rational. All the while ignoring the whole 4 pound thing. By the way, four pounds equals a lot of tiny pears.

 Caramel dipped baby pears, adorable!

So fast forward to later in the week. I did use about 8 of the pears for the fruit tray. They were in fact adorable dipped in caramel. Like little gleaming gems on my fruit and cheese tray. The only problem, I still had about 3 pounds of tiny pears left over. So still with good intentions, I planned to make a pear and apple crisp with the rest. Yeah well, you know what they say about good intentions! So today, when I finally got the chance to do a little baking, I realize the pears are way too ripe for a crisp. At this point they'd disintegrate to a soggy pulp if baked. Not so good for a crisp.  However, mushy fruit is great for muffins. So if you get one of those fruit boxes given to you over the holidays, here's a wonderful way to use up some of the pears.

Although I plan to try to be better in the future and not allow myself to be tempted by cuteness or a good bargain, I'm glad that I had to find a way to use the pears because these muffins are divine. They are very similar to a banana nut muffin, but with the delicate flavor of pear rather than the overwhelming flavor of banana.

Pear Muffins
(Printable recipe)
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup granulated sugar
3 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon finely minced crystallized ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup milk
1 egg -- beaten
zest of 1 lemon
1/4 cup melted butter -- cooled
1 cup mashed pear pulp -- (2 or 3 soft regular sized pears or 6-8 Seckel pears)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts or pecans

Preheat oven to 350 degrees, F.

Mash the pears.

 Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon and salt.

 

 

 Chop the pecans

Beat together milk, beaten egg, butter and lemon zest and crystallized ginger. Mix pears and nuts into flour mixture. Gently stir milk mixture into dry ingredients. Batter should be lumpy, not smooth. Do not over mix.

I used a silicon pan, but a regular muffin tin is fine.

Spray muffin pans with nonstick spray. Fill muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake at 350 degrees F for 20 to 25 minutes, until tops are browned. Remove from pan immediately, and serve warm. If you have any leftovers, which I can't imagine, they can be kept a couple of days in an airtight container, or frozen.

Gorgeous Pear Muffins

Perfect with a bit of butter and a pipping hot cup of Twinings Apple Cinnamon  tea.

pet peeves

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People that don't use turn signals.
People that read over my shoulder.
People that turn every conversation into one about themselves.
Bad grammar.
People that write checks in the express line at the store.
Wal-mart-pretty much everything about Wal-mart annoys me!
Junk mail.
Slow computers
Telemarketers.
The term semi-homemade??!!??
Sandra Lee- I'm sure she's a wonderful person...she annoys me.(see previous pet peeve)
People that leave their shopping cart in the parking lot rather than walk a few steps to put it where it belongs.
Men in too short shorts.
Know-it-all's.
People with no sense of humor.
We all have them, those little things in life that just make you crazy. These are just a few things that annoy me. I could go on but I wanted to keep this post to a reasonable length.
What brought on this little rant you ask? I made chocolate muffins a couple of days ago and was reminded of one of the things that really gets under my skin. I get really annoyed me when I'm reading through recipes on websites that have reader reviews and someone writes a review of a recipe that they completely changed and then complain about how they didn't like it. I'm all for using a recipe as a guide and changing it up to suit your personal tastes. Writing a review and sharing the things you changed is fine. I find that very useful. However when someone completely changes a recipe by making substitutions, additions, etc.. that don't work out, it's not the recipes fault. You screwed it up! Please don't rate and review a recipe you didn't make.
Then there are those reviewers that start the review with "I don't like ...but I thought I'd make this anyway and I didn't like it." Okay.  If you don't like ginger and make ginger bread, chance are your not going to like it. Is it really  necessary to write a review?  Major pet peeve! Anyway...

In my continuing effort to eat more healthful foods and sneak in fiber where possible, I bought some milled flax seeds. Flax is a great source of fiber, high in Omega 3's and helps lower cholesterol. All great things. Milled flax seeds can be used in baking and I'd seen a recipe for chocolate yogurt muffins. Mmmm chocolate muffins as health food. Perfect! As I was getting ready to make these muffins, I decided to make a few changes and substitutions to the original recipe. I used Hersey's Special Dark cocoa powder in place of regular cocoa. The darker the chocolate the better for you it is, right? That was a good substitution. The recipe called for vanilla yogurt, I used plain yogurt and added 1 tsp. vanilla. A little less sugar, also good. Everything was fine up till this point. Just as I was measuring out the dry ingredients, I saw the bag of King Arthur half white half wheat flour I'd just bought. Oh yeah a little wheat flour and these muffins are officially in the health food category. It can't hurt to add wheat flour...umm yeah, not the best baking decision. The muffins were still okay but the wheat flour made them too heavy and really changed the flavor. The flax already adds a bit of a nutty flavor but combined with the wheat flour it was just too much. I'm not saying they were throw out terrible just less good then they would have been. Totally my fault. I made a substitution that just didn't work well. Actually I made them a couple of days ago and they tasted better a day or so after later than they did straight out of the oven, or they've just grown on me. So here's the recipe as I made it but except for the flour change.  Without that mistake these muffins would be quite good. And that's my review!

Chocolate Yogurt Muffins

1 1/2 c all purpose flour
1/3 c milled flax seeds
1/2 c cocoa (I used the Hersey's Special Dark cocoa powder) 
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt 
3/4 c sugar 
1 c yogurt 

1 tsp. vanilla
1/4 c vegetable oil 
1/4 c milk 
1/2 c chopped nuts

1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional)

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line 12 muffin cups with paper liners or grease.

In a large bowl, blend dry ingredients together. In another bowl, blend yogurt, vanilla, oil, and milk. Add nuts and chocolate chips to dry ingredients and pour in liquid stirring until just blended.

Spoon batter into prepared muffin cups filling about 2/3 full. Bake at 400 degrees F. for 18 - 20 minutes or until done.

Yields 12 muffins using a regular size 12 muffin pan.

Banana Macadamia Nut Muffins

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I came across this recipe when I was searching for a recipe to use up my sad old bananas. I always buy bananas with the thought that we need more fresh fruit in our diet. Despite these good intentions, we rarely eat them after I bring them home. For whatever reason we'll eat one or two and the rest just sit there. I hate to waste food so I usually try to use them in baking. So these bananas became banana macadamia nut muffins, which pretty much defeats the purpose of buying bananas so that we eat more fresh fruit. It's the thought that counts right??!!

Banana Macadamia Nut Muffins
Bon Appetit, June 1991

1 1/2 cups unbleached all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 1/4 cups mashed ripe bananas (about 3 large)
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 cup firmly packed dark brown sugar
1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
1/4 cup milk
1 large egg
1 cup unsalted macadamia nuts, toasted, chopped

Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease twelve muffin cups or line with muffin papers. Sift first 4 ingredients into large bowl. Combine bananas, both sugars, butter, milk and egg in medium bowl. Mix into dry ingredients. Fold in half of nuts. Divide batter among prepared muffin cups. Sprinkle tops of muffins with remaining macadamia nuts. Bake until muffins are golden brown and tester inserted into center comes out clean, about 25 minutes. Transfer muffins to rack and cool.
These muffins are very tasty. I love the crunch of the nuts on top. Next time I make these I think I'll throw in a little coconut as well.
(Print Recipe)

What could make these muffins even better? Nutella!!! Now we're talking... I think I'll buying more bananas soon!

Carrot Muffins

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I somehow ended up with two large bags of carrots in the vegetable bin in my fridge. Don't really know how. Carrot fairies maybe??
Anyway I needed to use some of the carrots right away. These muffins seemed like the perfect use for excess carrots! While not as healthy as the oatmeal banana muffins, they have lots of fruit and a little oatmeal, so I tell myself they're kinda healthy. Well health food or not they are tasty little muffins!

Carrot Muffins

Ingredients:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups sugar
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
pinch of freshly grated nutmeg
2 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 cups grated carrot, squeezed mostly dry
1 lg Granny Smith apple peeled, grated, and squeezed dry
1 (8-ounce) container crushed pineapple, well drained
1/2 cup quick-cooking oats
1/3 cup walnuts roughly chopped (optional)
3 large eggs
1 cup vegetable oil
1 tsp. vanilla
Method:
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tin with paper liner or use a silicon muffin pan.
In a large bowl whisk together flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking soda, and salt. Add carrot, apple, pineapple, oats, and walnuts, mix together until well combined. In a smaller bowl, whisk together eggs, oil, and vanilla. Pour egg mixture into the fruit mixture and stir until combined. Spoon batter into prepared muffin pan filling muffin cups about 3/4 full. Bake until wooden toothpick comes out clean about 35 minutes. Remove from pan and place on wire rack to cool completely.

Guilt (and gluten) free oatmeal banana muffins

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My dad is the healthiest person I know. Really. He's in his late 60's has almost no body fat and can outwork most men half his age. His cholesterol and blood pressure are great in spite of eating eggs, real butter, and some form of dessert at least once a day. If you ask him what his secret is he'll tell you; oatmeal. He has eaten a bowl of oatmeal and two eggs for breakfast nearly everyday of his entire life. I think he single handily has kept Quaker Oats in business!
He's hardcore with the oatmeal too. It's the old-fashioned oatmeal, no quick cooking, brown sugar and maple microwave variety for Dad. He claims that the quick cooking kind it's nearly as healthy( and apparently the American Cancer Society agrees). Oh and he doesn't put any sugar on his oatmeal either, sometimes some raisins or other fruit but never sugar.

Oatmeal is one of those super foods that has numerous health benefits, not the least of which is lowering cholesterol levels. I know I should get more in my diet and I do occasionally eat a bowl. I just can't seem to make myself eat it everyday. Oh and I do have to add a bit of brown sugar, sorry Dad, I'm not as tough as you! Hubs will also force down a bowl now and again, but definitely isn't going to eat it on a regular basis. So I been was looking for some other ways to incorporate more of this wonder food into our diet. I came across this recipe for oatmeal banana muffins. It's low fat and has an amazing 25 grams of oatmeal to each muffin! I didn't actually set out to make gluten free muffins, but this recipe uses no wheat flour. Instead it calls for oat flour. I didn't have any oat flour on hand, but its easy to make. I put my old fashioned rolled oats into the food processor and ground them until they had a flour like texture. Super simple! It takes about a cup and a half of oats to make one cup of oat flour.
The muffins were really moist. Hubs and I agreed they taste and texture of banana bread.


These muffins are like a portable bowl of oatmeal. The fruit is even included.

Banana Oatmeal Muffins
Yield: 12 large
Bake: in 400ºF oven for 20 minutes

1 1/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup yogurt, plain low fat
1/2 cup milk, low fat
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/3 cup oil, sunflower or vegetable oil
2 bananas, large, ripe, mashed
1 egg, large, lightly beaten
1 1/2 cup oat flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda

Instructions
In a bowl mix together rolled oats, yogurt and milk. Let soak for 10 minutes.
Mix oat flour, salt, spices, baking powder and baking soda in a bowl.
Add brown sugar, mashed banana, egg and oil to rolled oats mixture. Mix well.
Add dry ingredients to the rolled oats mixture. Mix well. Fill greased or paper lined muffin cups 2/3 full. Bake for approximately 20 minutes.

Orange Blueberry Muffins...

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...just the thing to break that post holiday baking slump.

Is it just me or does anyone else get the post holiday baking slump? I know everyone vows to lose weight after the holiday's, but I even lose the desire to bake. After baking (and eating) all that rich holiday food, nothing much appeals to me in those weeks following Christmas. That may not be all bad considering how tight my pants felt after the holidays!
However when I came across this recipe for orange muffins I found myself pulling out the flour, sugar, butter...etc. Citrus and fruit, now that's just the combo that will get me back in the kitchen. These muffins are delicious! They are moist and slightly cake like, but without being heavy. The fresh orange juice and zest gives them a wonderful punch of citrus. Throw in any berries or cranberries you have on hand and you might find yourself getting back in the baking groove!

Orange Blueberry Muffins
source: Rebecca Rather The Pastry Queen

1 cup milk
1/2 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1/2 cup sour cream
2 large eggs
1 cup (2 sticks) unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
3 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
zest of 1 orange
1 cup fresh or frozen blueberries tossed in a bit of flour

Orange Glaze

1/4 cup freshly squeezed orange juice
1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
1 teaspoon grated orange zest

Preheat oven to 350. Grease 8 Texas-size (3 1/2 inches in diameter and 2 inches deep) muffin cups with butter or cooking spray. (*see note below) Whisk together the milk, orange juice, sour cream, eggs, and butter in a medium mixing bowl. Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Pour the milk mixture into the dry ingredients and stir just until the flour is incorporated. Gently fold the orange zest and blueberries into the batter.

Spoon the batter into the muffin pan, filling each cup just to the top. Bake the muffins for about 25 minutes, until they are golden brown around the edges and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Cool the muffins in the pans for about 5 minutes, then transfer them to a cooling rack and glaze.

To make the glaze: combine all three ingredients in a medium bowl. Spread the mixture on top of each muffin. Serve warm or at room temp. (there amazing warm!)

Notes: Instead of making "Texas" size muffins, I made mine in a regular size muffin pan. I baked them about 16 minutes. Test them with a toothpick at 15 minutes.

Autumn Pumpkin Muffins with Pecan Toffee Streusel

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I don't know what happens to me in the Fall, but I become a little pumpkin obsessed! I can't seem to make enough with pumpkin. Maybe it's because we have such long hot summers here in the South that those first cool days make me want to celebrate. I'm not sure the reason, but I do know that this time of year I crave spicy, pumpkiny, nutty, goodness.
I've had Rebecca Rather's Pastry Queen cookbook for a while now and everything I've made from it has been wonderful. I decided to give her pumpkin quick bread recipe a try. I made muffins rather than the loaves and added toffee pieces to the topping. Why? Because I love toffee too and thought I'd throw all my favorite things on top of these muffins.

This is also my entry for this month's Sugar High Friday. This month's host is Dessert First and the theme is spice. Check out all the other enrties here on Oct 31


Autumn Pumpkin Bread with Pecan Toffee Streusel

recipe from Rebecca Rather's The Pastry Queen slightly adapted

Muffins
1 1/2 cups pecan pieces (divided)
1 cup vegetable oil, such as canola or safflower
3 cups sugar
4 lg eggs
1 (15 ounce )can pure pumpkin puree
1 cup water
3 cups all-purpose flour
2 tsp. baking soda
1 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
1 1/2 tsp. ground allspice
1 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp. ground cloves
1/2 tsp. salt

Topping
1/2 cup firmly packed brown sugar
1/4 cup unsalted butter, melted and slightly cooled
2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/2 toasted pecan pieces (above)
1/2 toffee pieces
If you like a lot of the streusel, you may want to double this part.

Preheat oven to 350. Arrange the pecans on a baking sheet in a single layer and toast them in the oven for 7-9 min., until golden and aromatic. Reserve 1/2 cup for streusel topping.
Grease standard size muffin tin with butter or cooking spray.
Whisk the oil and sugar in a large bowl. Add the eggs, pumpkin, and water and whisk until combined.
In another bowl whisk together flour, spices, baking soda, and pecan pieces.
carefully mix the flour mixture into the pumpkin mixture.
Fill the muffin pans almost to the top with batter.

For the struesel
Stir together sugar, butter, cinnamon pecan pieces, and toffee. Sprinkle liberally over tops of muffins before baking.
Bake muffins 30-35 minutes.
Yield 36 muffins or you can make this into two loaves by equally dividing batter between two greased loaf pans and baking for 1 hour or until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean.

These muffins are very so flavorful and aromatic, like taking a bite of Autumn. I suggest brewing a pot of coffee as they cook, because you'll want to eat one of these muffins as soon as they emerge from the oven.