Pumpkin Spice Muffins & Cream Cheese Frosting

Today out of nowhere, I was attacked by a pretty intense craving for something involving pumpkin & cream cheese.  Pregnancy really does do crazy things to you, including sudden desire for flavors that hadn't even entered your thought process until it was just there.  I have recently learned that when you crave sugar, your body really actually needs protein.  So, to the friend who is wondering: yes, I ate my chicken first, drank two large glasses of water, and waited a good 45 minutes after dinner before baking, just to make sure this craving was legit. 

Sure enough, my crystal ball very clearly showed some yummy pumpkin cream-cheese muffins in my immediate future.  It just so happened that I had every single ingredient already in stock, including several of which I do not regularly buy unless I have a reason for doing so.  Further proof that this was meant to be. :)

Credit for this recipe goes to The Pioneer Woman.  Here's the fun I had trying it out! 



Artist's rendering of Heaven.





Here's what you'll need. 

An apron and your trusty happy face spoon.



That's right.







Not pictured: Cream Cheese. Oops!

Muffin ingredients:1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 c. sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1.5 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp ground ginger
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp salt
4 Tbsp butter (half stick) cut into pieces

1 c. (heaping) pumpkin puree 
(Muy importante: do NOT use pumpkin pie filling!!!! Just regular canned pumpkin.)
1/2 c. evaporated milk
1 egg
1.5 tsp vanilla
Optional: (pick one or more) golden raisins, walnuts, pecans, coconut, chocolate chips

Frosting:
1/4 c butter, softened
4 oz cream cheese
1/2 lb Powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla

Preheat oven to 400* F.

In a large bowl, sift flour, sugar, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg & salt.

 Next, cut up 4 Tbsp (1/4 cup) of butter. I may or may not have cheated and used margarine. (This is a sin!)  Cut it into your flour mixture until it is fully mixed in.  A pastry cutter would work a lot better, but since I couldn't find mine, my whisk did the job just fine.

  

What butter???

In another bowl, mix together your pumpkin puree (repeat: NOT pumpkin pie filling. Cannot emphasize enough!), egg, evaporated milk, and vanilla.  Mix with a whisk until it's good and creamy.  Please forgive lack of pre-mixed picture.  It did not look so yummy....


Aside: it is important to note the expiration date on your can of evaporated milk before you pour it in to make batter.  Thankfully, I noticed just in time that, despite having purchased this particular can only days ago, the date on the can was 11/11/2006.  Way to go, Walmart.
*Insert mad dash to grocery store here*

Pour pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture.

If you are lucky, you may even end up with a smiley face in your pumpkin mixture! 
No, I did not do that on purpose.
Even the ingredients are excited about becoming pumpkin muffins!



Woohoo!!

Mix together until just combined. 

Generously grease a muffin pan (Baker's Joy w/o flour works well for this). Pour the batter into the cups, filling each one about 1/2 full.  There will be barely enough, so start small and come back to fill in.

Lick the spatula. Mmmm, pumpkin goodness.

Yummmm

In a small measuring cup, mix together equal parts sugar, nutmeg, cinnamon & ground ginger.  You only need enough to sprinkle on top of your muffins.

By the way, if you're adding a mix-in, it is highly advisable to do it before you get to this point.  Try not to be sorely disappointed in yourself for forgetting to stir in your white chocolate chips before filling the muffin cups.

:'(

Bake your muffins at 400*F for 22-26 mins.  I went for an even 24 and this is what I ended up with:

Perfection.

Let your muffins cool for at LEAST 15 minutes before removing to a wire cooling rack.  If you are going to frost the muffins, let them cool completely (read: 30-45 mins) before you go anywhere near them with the frosting.  Otherwise it will all run off and you will have a big gooey mess on your counter.

Frosting
It is totally up to you, the pastry chef, whether or not you frost the muffins.  However, it is my belief that in order to be blog-post worthy, anything worth doing is worth doing all the way. :)  Also, a little frosting goes a long way toward convincing your picky husband to try your pumpkin muffins.  Which may also be a good reason for leaving it off...heehee!

Make your frosting while your muffins are cooling.

Rinse out & dry one of the bowls used earlier to avoid:
a) running out of bowls
b) creating extra mess to clean up later.

In this bowl, make a big fluffy pile of powdered sugar, cream cheese, butter & vanilla.  Again, my apologies for lack of "before" picture.

Use a hand mixer to blend frosting ingredients until smooth & whipped.  There should not be any chunks of butter left in it. 

More spatula-licking fun to follow.
Hopefully you are using a different spatula than the one you licked earlier.
I happen to have a set of three that look identical. :) 

  Also, you should not take your eyes off of the hand mixer & powdered sugar to check your Facebook chat window unless you are wearing a HazMat suit and are prepared for some major cleanup.

Before licking the spatula, use said utensil to scoop your frosting into a ziplock bag for easy spreading.  A pastry bag would be preferable, but this being my first true baking endeavor since moving, I have discovered that my box of pastry & decorating tools is MIA. 

Put the bag of frosting in the fridge until you are ready to use.  A good 15 minutes or so will firm it up a bit so that it isn't quite so messy when you come to use it.


While you are waiting for your muffins to finish cooling, you could start cleanup & load the dishwasher.  This is also a great time to console yourself for the chocolate chip blunder by munching straight from the bag. :)

Nothing a little chocolate can't fix!

After 15 minutes of cooling time, remove muffins {carefully} from pan & place on wire cooling rack for the rest of your cooling time.  Try really, really hard to wait a full 30 minutes before frosting. :)

Tip: Spread a layer of plastic wrap on the counter under your cooling rack
to catch any drips of frosting.

Frosting time! 
Cut a tiny hole across a bottom corner of the ziplock bag. 
Put a big happy swirl of frosting on the top of each muffin.
Spread the frosting with the back of a spoon. (Just trust me - it works SO much better than a knife!)

 Put your muffins on a pretty plate or serving tray.  No matter the season, your favorite snowman plate from Christmas will work just fine.  Besides, pumpkin muffins are kind of holiday-ish, so you might as well finish up with some snowman flair.



If you don't have room on your plate for all 12 muffins, eat one.  Somebody has to be the royal taste tester!

Store the plate in the fridge, since cream cheese frosting will run if it gets warm.

Notes: Next time I will double the muffin recipe, because I am now left with half a can of perfectly good pumpkin puree and no other plans to use it this week.  Also, the frosting recipe leaves a TON of extra, so doubling the recipe would use it up a lot better.

Serve with a tall glass of cold milk and enjoy!