Pumpkin Pie Muffins with Cream Cheese Filling

Omigod. YUM. Just that name alone makes me drool. Last week, we went to The Palace Grill, which always has these amazing mini muffins (like apricot, or molasses, or jalapeno cheddar...) and I felt inspired to make some yummy muffins for my husband's birthday, which was yesterday. I was thinking of some of his favorite flavors, maybe something along the lines of maple and pecan, and then it struck me! Pumpkin pie! My husband LOVES pumpkin pie. So I started googling recipes for pumpkin pie muffins.

I found a few that were interesting, but seemed lacking in one sense or the other, and began to think I'd need to patch together several recipes, all the while thinking that a cream cheese filling would be the perfect touch. That's when I came across this recipe: Bakergirl Creations' recipe for Pumpkin Pie Muffins with Cream Cheese Filling. OOoooh yeeeaahhh...

So I tried to make the muffins and document the process as I went. I wanted to take a photo of the part where you have to make a well in the muffin, using two spoons, and plop in a teaspoon of the cream cheese filling. But it turns out it takes two hands to make a well with the two spoons, and a third hand to hold the camera. Of which I am lacking. So all I got was a stupid photo:

And a splooged muffin:

But thankfully, when they came out of the oven, they looked like this:

And they were pure sin in a pocket. Filled with pretty much everything decadent you could imagine to put in a muffin, these little babies were so moist and flavorful, you could eat them all day. The cream cheese was a perfect counterpoint to all the myriad spices. They taste rich and sweet, but not sickeningly so. The spices balance the decadence nicely.

My rating
♥♥♥ I would give it 5 hearts because I definitely could eat them all day long, every day. But if I did, I would quickly look like a cream cheese muffin. I think these are perfect additions to a dinner party, where you can spread the love around (as much as you might want to hoard them all to yourself).

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Rating System:
♥♥♥♥♥ Omigod this is awesome, I could eat it every night!
♥♥♥♥ Wow this is amazing for a special meal!
♥♥♥ Great choice for a dinner party!
♥♥ Hey, that was pretty good. We should have it again sometime.
♥ Eh. S'all right....
♠ Ugh, no! That was so bad I just had to share.