Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins - Fluffy and moist pumpkin muffins with a sweet cream cheese filling baked inside of them, with delicious cinnamon streusel topping.
I wanted to kick off pumpkin season with a fall baking recipe that is approachable but also a little bit special, and these delicious pumpkin cream cheese muffins are just the ticket! While I have plenty of pumpkin recipes to choose from on this site, such as my Pumpkin Bundt Cake and Pumpkin Creme Brulee, I love that this easy muffin recipe can also double up as a perfect fall breakfast option.
If you ask me, cream cheese-stuffed pumpkin muffins are a pretty spectacular way to bring in the fall season. This recipe is super popular because there is a pumpkin cream cheese muffin available at Starbucks right now, but in my opinion, homemade is always better! Try this recipe and let me know your verdict!
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Why You'll Love This Recipe
- Flavorful, moist muffins with the best crumble topping.
- Makes a great dessert, breakfast, or snack.
- Surprise cream cheese center is fun and extra delicious.
Ingredients
- Flour - Regular all-purpose flour works best for these pumpkin muffins.
- Sugar - We'll use two kinds of sugar in these muffins, white sugar and light brown sugar.
- Butter - Use salted or unsalted, whichever you prefer. If you use salted, just leave out the excess salt in the recipe.
- Eggs - Large eggs, preferably free range.
- Pumpkin Purée - Make sure you use 100% pumpkin puree, NOT pumpkin pie filling. The cans look similar!
- Oil - I used vegetable oil but you can use any kind of flavorless oil like Canola oil or sunflower oil.
- Milk - Full-fat milk is best but you can use whatever you have.
- Spices - I like to use ground cinnamon and ground ginger for a tasty pumpkin spice flavor. You can use your favorite spice blend, such as pumpkin pie spice, or add more spices like ground nutmeg.
- Cream Cheese - Full fat cream cheese, make sure it is room temperature.
- Vanilla - Vanilla extract or vanilla bean paste will go into the muffins and the cream cheese filling.
See the recipe card for quantities and the full recipe.
How to Make Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
There are three parts to this pumpkin cream cheese muffin recipe, the filling, the crumble topping, and the muffin batter. We'll make the filling and topping first, so they are ready when it is time to put it all together.
Make the Cream Cheese Filling
Mix all the filling ingredients together in a medium bowl and beat with a spoon until smooth.
Put the bowl of filling in the freezer to chill while you prepare the streusel and muffin batter.
Make the Cinnamon Streusel Topping
Put all the dry streusel ingredients in a small bowl and mix together.
Melt the butter and add a little at a time, mixing with a fork, until it looks like chunky, wet sand. You may not need all of the butter.
Prepare
Preheat the oven to 425°F / 220°C and line a muffin pan with muffin liners.
Mix Dry Ingredients
In a large mixing bowl, sift together all the dry ingredients and both sugars. Whisk to combine.
Mix Wet Ingredients
In a separate bowl, melt the butter in the microwave, then add all the other wet ingredients and mix to combine.
Add Wet to Dry
Pour the wet ingredients into the flour mixture and whisk until smooth.
You can use a stand mixer if you want, but it's very easy to just do this by hand.
Put Batter in Cases
Put a small amount of pumpkin muffin batter into the base of each of the muffin cups, just about 1-2 tablespoons of batter.
Add Cream Cheese Filling
Remove the cream cheese mixture from the fridge and place a small dollop of filling in the center of each muffin. I like to use a very small cookie scoop or a melon baller but a teaspoon will work just fine.
Try to keep the filling in the very center of the muffin so it doesn't touch the edges.
Fill to the Top
Add the remaining batter on top of the cheesecake filling and fill the muffin liner all the way to the top.
Top with Streusel
Sprinkle a generous amount of cinnamon streusel on top of the muffins and press down gently.
Bake
Bake at 425°F / 220°C for 7 minutes, then reduce the oven temperature down to 350°F / 180°C and bake for another 15 minutes, or until the muffins are baked.
When they are done, they should be slightly springy to the touch. Test with a toothpick to see if it comes out clean, but be sure to avoid the cream cheese dollops!
Let the pumpkin cheesecake muffins cool in the muffin tins.
How to Get Nice Domed Muffin Tops
I now do this muffin method with all my muffin recipes to get the beautiful, bakery-style muffins with the domed tops.
- Fill your muffin liners all the way to the top.
- Bake for the first 5-7 minutes at a high temperature, this makes the muffins rise up tall, very quickly.
- Turn down the oven and bake for the remaining time at a normal temperature to make sure they are baked all the way through without burning.
Variations
Regular Pumpkin Muffins - Even without the cream cheese filling, these are the best pumpkin muffins you'll ever have! If you want to you can just use this great recipe on its own. Though I do recommend keeping the cinnamon streusel as, in my opinion, that is the best part!
Add Some Nuts - Add a handful of chopped pecans or walnuts to the pumpkin muffin batter for some extra texture and crunch.
Chocolate Chip Muffins - For extra sweetness add some chocolate chips to the pumpkin batter
Pumpkin Cream Cheese Swirl Muffins - If you'd like to, you can use a knife to swirl the cream cheese layer into the pumpkin muffin batter to have it swirled through the whole muffin, rather than a dollop in the middle.
Equipment
- Muffin Pan
- Large Bowl
- Whisk - You could use a hand mixer or stand mixer for this recipe, but there is really no need. It's an easy recipe to just make with a bowl and a whisk.
- Muffin Liners - Cupcake liners will work too.
Storage
Store the pumpkin cream cheese muffins in an airtight container. They will be good at room temperature for up to 2 days, or in the fridge for a week.
You can freeze these muffins as well - let them cool completely first, then wrap them tightly in plastic wrap and freeze for up to 3 months.
FAQ
Starbucks have a pumpkin cream cheese muffin out in stores right which is making these muffins super popular.
There are a few differences. Aside from the fact that this pumpkin muffin recipe is fresh and homemade, with no chemicals or artificial flavorings, the Starbucks pumpkin muffins also have the cream cheese kind of on the tops of the muffins and they have pumpkin seeds baked into them.
More Pumpkin Desserts
If you are ready for some seriously delicious fall baking recipes, try some of these other pumpkin desserts:
Recipe
Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
Equipment
Ingredients
For the Cream Cheese Filling
- 8 oz Cream Cheese 225g
- ¼ cup Granulated Sugar 50g
- ½ teaspoon Vanilla Extract
For the Streusel Topping
- ½ cup All-purpose Flour 60g
- ⅓ cup Granulated Sugar 66g
- ½ stick Unsalted Butter 57g
- ½ teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon Salt
For the Pumpkin Muffins
- 3 cups All-purpose Flour 360g
- 1 cup Granulated Sugar 200g
- ¾ cup Light Brown Sugar 165g
- 3 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon Ground Ginger
- 3 teaspoon Baking Powder
- ½ teaspoon Baking Soda
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- 2 Large Eggs
- 1 stick Unsalted Butter 113g
- ¼ cup Vegetable Oil 56g
- 1 can Pumpkin Puree 15oz / 425g
- ½ cup Whole Milk 120g
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
Instructions
Make the Cream Cheese Filling
- Put all the filling ingredients in a bowl and beat them together with a spoon until smooth and combined. It is important that the cream cheese is at room temperature or your filling may be lumpy.8 oz Cream Cheese, ¼ cup Granulated Sugar, ½ teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- Put the bowl of filling in the freezer to chill while you prepare the streusel and muffin batter. *If you are making this ahead of time, just put it in the fridge, we don't want it to freeze, just to get cold and firm up a bit.
Make the Cinnamon Streusel Topping
- Put all the dry ingredients in a bowl and whisk together.½ cup All-purpose Flour, ⅓ cup Granulated Sugar, ½ teaspoon Ground Cinnamon, ¼ teaspoon Salt
- Melt the butter in the microwave and pour ¾ of it into the dry ingredients. Mix with a fork until combined. Add a little more butter at a time, mixing in between until the mixture looks like chunky, wet sand. You may not need all of the butter. Set aside.½ stick Unsalted Butter
Make the Pumpkin Muffins
- Preheat the oven to 425°F / 220°C and line a muffin tray with muffin liners.
- Sift the flour, both sugars, spices, baking powder, baking soda, and salt into a large bowl and mix to combine.3 cups All-purpose Flour, 1 cup Granulated Sugar, ¾ cup Light Brown Sugar, 3 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon, 1 teaspoon Ground Ginger, 3 teaspoon Baking Powder, ½ teaspoon Baking Soda, ½ teaspoon Salt
- In a separate bowl, melt the butter in the microwave, then add to it all the other wet ingredients. Whisk together to combine.2 Large Eggs, 1 stick Unsalted Butter, ¼ cup Vegetable Oil, 1 can Pumpkin Puree, ½ cup Whole Milk, 1 teaspoon Vanilla Extract
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and whisk together until smooth and free from lumps.
- Scoop or spoon a small amount of muffin batter into the bottom of each muffin liner - about 1-2 tablespoons.
- Remove the cream cheese filling from the freezer, it should be cold and fairly firm (i.e. not runny).
- Use a teaspoon or a small melon baller to scoop dollops of cream cheese filling. Place them in the center of each muffin. Try not to keep the cream cheese in the middle of the muffin so it doesn't touch the sides.
- Once all the muffins are filled, put more muffin batter on top, filling them all the way to the top of the case.
- Sprinkle each muffin generously with streusel topping, and press down very gently to push the streusel into the batter.
- Place the muffins in the center rack of the oven and bake for 7 minutes. Then turn the temperature down to 350°F / 180°C and continue to bake for another 15 - 20 minutes. Once the muffins are ready they should be slightly springy to touch and a skewer inserted should come out clean (be careful to avoid the filling!).
Notes
It really helps and I love hearing all your feedback!
Caroline
I thought that these were really good. My mom didn't like the cream cheese filling, though.
Jules Grasekamp
So glad you liked the pumpkin muffins Caroline! You can definitely make them without the cream cheese filling for a lovely plain pumpkin muffin 🙂
Thanks for trying my recipe!
Jules
SJD
Another good recipe! Makes a dozen "Texas size" muffins with generous amounts of filling and topping. I greased the muffin cups with a very small amount of coconut oil (the type that's solid at room temperature) and they came out fine.
Jules Grasekamp
So glad you like them! I love a large sized muffin! And that's a great tip about the coconut oil 🙂
Jules
SJD
These are even better than the red velvet brownies! I like your recipes because they use "ordinary" ingredients. I don't have to go all over the city looking for some white truffle dust from Madagascar or something... I'm not really an exceptional cook, and the two recipes I tried so far have been great. So my point is that the recipes are easy to follow and don't need exceptional skills to get a good result. One question about the pumpkin cheesecake muffins: they looked perfect when I took them out of the oven, but centers caved in when the muffins cooled off. Is this the nature of filled muffins, or do I need to adjust my baking? Love your website. Thanks!
Jules Grasekamp
Thank you so much SJD! I do try really hard to make sure that I use ingredients that everyone can easily access! Baking should be for everyone!
The muffins definitely shouldn't be sinking in the middle. It could be a few things, sinking muffins is typically due to the centre of the muffin not being quite baked enough, so it causes the structure to collapse in the middle. It could be something as simple as them needing an extra minute or two in the oven. It could also be caused by overmixing or opening the oven door too soon to check the muffins - every time you open the oven door it cools the oven down, if this happens before the structure is set then it can cause them to collapse later.
The last thing I can think of is if your cream cheese filling is too cold. If it is in the freezer too long or a fridge that is too cold, the cool temperature of the filling could prevent the inside of the muffin from baking properly while in the oven - that's why it's important not to let it it freeze.
I hope this helps and that your next batch of pumpkin cream cheese muffins turn out perfectly!
Jules
Winny Dalgetty
Put me right into a wicked Halloween mood, did these! ❤️ ❤️ ❤️ x
Chris Radwanski
I brought these in for my coworkers and they could not stop raving over them! Needless to say they finished the lot of them in one sitting. Absolutely delicious!