Christmas Notebook

For breakfast on the first day of school, I used this recipe for Pumpkin Cream Cheese Bread to make muffins. Spicy, moist and delicious. Thumbs up from everyone!

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
Makes 20 regular sized muffins.

Mix together:
1 2/3 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg (I used freshly grated.)

Whisk together:
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/2 cup canola oil
2 large eggs
1 1/2 cups sugar

Pour the flour mixture over the wet ingredients and stir until blended.

Optional: Stir in
1 cup chopped pecans or walnuts (I left out the nuts.)

Cream Cheese Filling:

Stir together: (will be runny)
1 package (8 ounce) cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon all-purpose flour
1 large egg
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

Line regular sized muffin tins with cupcake liners.

I used my small scoop to put batter in the liners.

Two scoops for the bottom, then poured some cream cheese mixture on top…

Then another scoop of batter…

At this point, I should have swirled the cream cheese filling into the batter, but I didn’t. The filling will be better incorporated if you take a knife and give the batter a short twirl.

Bake at 325* for 25 minutes.

They smell delicious while baking.

When cooled, you can add a glaze, though we didn’t bother.

Glaze / Mix together:
1 cup powdered sugar
2 to 2 1/2 Tablespoons half & half
1/2 to 1 teaspoon cinnamon
Optional / Top with:
1/2 cup chopped pecans or walnuts for garnish

Moist and spicy. Like pumpkin pie in a cake.

And they’re off! One to her first year of high school and one beginning her pursuit of a Masters in Business.

::sigh:: Where have the years gone?? ~~Rhonda