Whole Wheat Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

 

Recently, I tried a pumpkin cream cheese muffin recipe I saw online and thought looked really tasty. I was wrong. It was kind of dry and a little bland. We really love our pumpkin muffins around here, and I already have a recipe that I love so I changed it (big surprise there) to add a cream cheese filling center. These turned out exactly how I had hoped and then some. I love it when an experiment turns out like that!

I ground some wheat berries up in my WonderMill, got out the rest of my ingredients and got to work. I was going for a muffin that was moist and semi-dense without being a hokey puck. To do this I played with the oil and added a little applesauce, used 1/2 whole wheat and an entire can of pumpkin puree. The cream cheese added to the middle helped to keep thing moist and added a really nice additional layer of deliciousness. Layers of deliciousness…..I should copyright that!

Whole Wheat Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

• 4 eggs
• 2 cups sugar
• 1 (15 oz) can pumpkin puree
• 3/4 cup oil
• 3/4 cup applesauce
• 1 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry, white wheat or whole wheat flour
• 1 1/2 cups unbleached white flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 2 teaspoons baking soda
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 (8 oz) package cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar

In a small bowl, combine the cream cheese and 1/2 cup sugar; set aside. In a large bowl, mix together the eggs, sugar, pumpkin, oil and applesauce. Stir well. Mix in the flours, baking powder, cinnamon and baking soda. Fill paper lined muffin tins 2/3 full of pumpkin muffin mixture, then drop 1 tablespoon of cream cheese in the middle. Cover with 1 tablespoon more pumpkin muffin mixture and sprinkle with course sugar if desired. Bake in a 350 degree oven for 15-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool muffins out of the tin and on a wire rack for 10 minutes before eating (that cream cheese filling gets rocket hot, so be careful here!).

Now don’t those look so good? They were! This is probably my favorite whole wheat adaptation to date They were moist, had great flavor and that sugar sprinkled on the top gave them a really nice crunch that I loved. On a side note, we froze one to see how it would do and it was just as delicious (if not a little more) defrosted. This would be perfect to pop into a lunch box or as an after school snack. They’re so easy I wish I would have double the recipe and added some to my frozen treats for gift giving later in December! Oh well, there’s still time!