About These Small Batch Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
These pumpkin cream cheese muffins are incredibly moist and flavorful, thanks to lots of homemade pumpkin spice and tangy cream cheese swirls. The cream cheese swirl makes the muffins taste like they have bites of tangy cheesecake throughout!
I’m especially excited to add this to my muffin recipe collection because there’s lots to love about this recipe. The pumpkin muffin batter comes together with minimal equipment, with no stand mixer required! You can mix both the cheesecake swirl and the pumpkin batter by hand with a whisk.
But the best part?
These pumpkin cream cheese muffins is a part of my extensive small batch baking recipe archive. The recipe only makes 6 muffins, making it perfect for small households. With this recipe, you’re reducing leftovers and waste!
Learn more about this delicious pumpkin cream cheese muffin recipe below, and be sure to check out the other pumpkin recipes in the Hummingbird High archive!
Ingredients and Substitutions
Now that I’ve convinced you to make the recipe, here’s your shopping list for the muffins:
Shopping List For Small Batch Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffin Recipe
- cream cheese
- large eggs
- pure vanilla extract
- confectioners’ sugar
- all-purpose flour
- ground cinnamon
- ground nutmeg
- ground cloves
- baking powder
- baking soda
- kosher salt
- granulated sugar
- canned pumpkin puree
- canola oil
What is canned pumpkin puree?
In the United States, most grocery stores sell canned pumpkin. Canned pumpkin consists of pumpkin or squash that is de-seeded, peeled, roasted, and pureed. Many American recipes instruct you to use this pumpkin puree in both sweet and savory recipes. My favorite brand of canned pumpkin puree is Libby’s 100% Pure Pumpkin.
I can’t get canned pumpkin puree where I live. What can I use instead?
According to my international readers, canned pumpkin puree can be difficult to get outside of the United States. But no worries! You can make your own pumpkin puree at home. Check out my recipe for homemade pumpkin puree!
Can I use pumpkin pie spice instead of cinnamon, nutmeg, and cloves?
Yes! In a pinch, you can substitute all the spices with 4 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice.
Help! My pumpkin cream cheese muffins don’t look as tall and domed as yours. What did I do wrong?
In the recipe, I instruct you to fill each muffin pan cavity with a LOT of muffin batter—around a ¼ cup’s worth. That amount goes beyond the conventional wisdom that states that you should only fill muffin pans up to ⅔- or ¾- full of batter!
So, a lot of people tend to panic and stop at around that capacity. Many think that, if they follow my instructions, the muffin batter will overflow the pan and onto the oven floor when baked.
And I get that, I really do. But it’s also likely why your muffins aren’t as tall and domed as mine. It turns out one of the secrets to super tall and domed muffin tops is filling the muffin cavities with a generous amount of batter. Don’t worry about the muffin batter overflowing the pan!
How To Store Small Batch Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
These pumpkin cream cheese muffins are best the day they are made—that way, you get a crispy top! However, the muffins can be wrapped individually in plastic wrap, or stored in an airtight container or under a cake dome, at room temperature for up to 2 days.
Can you freeze small batch pumpkin cream cheese muffins?
Technically yes, but I don’t recommend it. If you do, the tops will lose their crispiness—the muffin will still be tasty and soft, with no crunch or crisp from the muffin tops.
But if you insist, you can indeed freeze the pumpkin cream cheese muffins.To do so, follow the recipe instructions to bake the muffins. Once you’ve turned them out of the muffin pan, cool them completely to room temperature. Once cool, individually wrap each muffin in two layers of plastic wrap. Freeze for up to 3 months.
When ready to serve, thaw overnight in the refrigerator. Rewarm by placing the muffins on a parchment-lined sheet pan, and bake at 350°F for 10 minutes.
Best Recipe Tips
About Ingredients
- It’s important that the cream cheese is softened to room temperature. If it’s too cold, it will be too hard to mix the batter for the cream cheese swirl by hand! Cold cream cheese also makes a lumpy batter.
To make sure that my cream cheese is softened, I actually like to microwave it on medium-low for 10 to 15 seconds.
Next-Level Recipe Techniques
- If your cream cheese isn’t softened to the right temperature (see my previous tip about microwaving it to warm it!), it can be hard to mix the batter for the cream cheese swirl. If you’ve already added the egg, do NOT microwave the mixture to soften it more—you’ll end up scrambling the egg. Instead, just use a handheld electric mixer to bring the mixture together.
- The recipe instructs you to line every other cavity with a muffin liner. To do so, align a muffin pan so that its short side faces you. With a standard pan, that means that the muffin pan’s cavities will be in a 3 x 4 grid. Lining every other cavity means that you’ll end up with a pan with liners that look like they’re in hopscotch formation.
Why do this? Leaving a cavity empty in between the filled ones allows more air to circulate between them. More hot air enables the muffins to rise to greater heights. You can learn more in this Food52 article (where I’m quoted, too!) about achieving sky-high muffin tops.
On Styling The Muffins
- After assembling the muffins, the recipe instructs you to swirl the final dollop of cream cheese into the pumpkin batter. Don’t fully mix the cream cheese so that it disappears into the batter. In fact, you want a fairly the cream cheese to be pretty separate from the pumpkin batter. It makes more dramatic and photogenic muffin tops!
Get the Recipe: Small Batch Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins (Makes 6 Muffins!)
Ingredients
For The Cream Cheese Swirl
- ½ cup (4 ounces or 113 grams) cream cheese, at room temperature,
- 1 large egg, at room temperature,
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1 cup (4 ounces or 113 grams) confectioners' sugar, sifted if necessary
For the Pumpkin Batter
- ⅔ cup (3 ounces or 85 grams) all-purpose flour
- 1 Tablespoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- pinch ground cloves
- ¼ teaspoon baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon baking soda
- ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
- ¼ cup plus 3 Tablespoons (3 ounces or 85 grams) granulated sugar
- ⅓ cup (2.65 ounces or 75 grams) canned pumpkin puree
- ⅓ cup (2.65 ounces or 75 grams) canola oil
- 1 large egg, at room temperature
- 1 large egg yolk, at room temperature
- ½ teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Instructions
- Prep the oven and pans. Position a rack in the center of the oven and preheat the oven to 400°F. Line every other cavity of a 12-capacity muffin pan with paper liners.
- Make the cream cheese swirl. In a medium bowl, beat the cream cheese with a wooden spoon or stiff rubber spatula until soft and creamy.Add the egg and vanilla for the cream cheese swirl and mix until just combined. Add the confectioners' sugar, mixing vigorously until smooth and combined, about 1 to 2 minutes.
- Make the pumpkin batter by mixing the dry ingredients for the pumpkin batter. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cinnamon, cloves, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
- Whisk the wet ingredients for the pumpkin batter. In another medium bowl, whisk together the sugar, pumpkin, oil, egg, egg yolk, and vanilla.
- Combine the dry and wet ingredients. Gradually mix in the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients until just combined.
- Assemble the pumpkin muffins. Use a 1-teaspoon measure to fill each lined cavity with 2 teaspoons (.20 ounces or 6 grams) of the cream cheese swirl. Then, use a 1-Tablespoon measure to top the cream cheese with 2 Tablespoons (1 ounce or 28 grams) of pumpkin muffin batter.Repeat once more, topping the pumpkin batter with another 2 teaspoons of cream cheese swirl followed by another 2 Tablespoons of pumpkin muffin batter.Finally, finish each muffin with a final 2 teaspoons of cream cheese swirl. Use a toothpick or wooden skewer to lightly swirl the cream cheese into the muffin batter.
- Bake the muffins. Bake for 20 to 22 minutes, or until the muffins are domed and the skewer inserted into the center of a muffin comes out with a few crumbs attached. Cool in the muffin pan on a wire rack for 5 minutes, then turn the muffins out onto the rack to cool slightly.
- Serve and store. Serve warm or at room temperature. The muffins can be wrapped individually in plastic wrap or stored in an airtight container or under a cake dome at room temperature for up to 2 days.
Did you make this recipe?
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Weeknight Baking:
Recipes to Fit your Schedule
Over the past several years of running Hummingbird High, I kept a crucial aspect of my life hidden from my readers: I had a full-time, extremely demanding job in the tech world. In my debut cookbook, Weeknight Baking, I finally reveal the secrets to baking delicious desserts on a tight schedule.
These are a Winner! Absolutely delicious! Mine needed a few extra minutes in the oven because I used Gluten Free flour, which tends to be more dense. I am printing this and adding it to my collection!