Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my fellow Canadians! I hope that you're all enjoying the beautiful weather and the time that comes with a holiday.

Here are a few things that I'm thankful for this year:

• A job in my field of work that has a lot of potential (right now in the early stages of program development, so I haven't been doing too much), when so many of my classmates and friends are still without work in this sucky economy.
• A loving and supportive family. I've gone through some pretty major changes in my life in the past few months, and my parents have been behind me every step of the way, and I'm so grateful for them.
• A great group of friends. Even though almost all of the people that I call my best friends live a distance away (anywhere from an hour and a half to all the way across the world), they are still there for me in a moment when I need them, and I hope they feel the same way about me. Good friends don't come by often, and I try to make every effort to keep those special ones in my life.
• A brand new car! Not only a brand new car, but my first ever car! A Hyundai Elantra GT (hatchback) with all the bells and whistles. I'm in love. And it's name is Hernandez. Random? Completely. But when I wondered to myself what I would name my car if I was to, Hernandez was the first name that popped into my head. Crazy I know, it's not even a first name, but it was so outrageous that it's just stuck.
• The beautiful fall weather. Here in southern Ontario we didn't have a fabulous summer. It was cool and rainy most of the time, with only one stellar week of heat and sun. So I am absolutely loving this 20-30 degree sunshiney weather with colorful leaves.
• Last of all, I really am grateful for where I am in life right now. It might not seem like it sometimes. It's certainly not where I expected to be after just celebrating my 25th birthday. Sometimes I actually feel disappointed or concerned that I'm not where I 'should' be. As I mentioned earlier, a few months ago I made a major change in my life, and that was really tough to make. It affected everything in my life from that point on; it was scary and at the time I wondered if it was the right decision to make. But now I know without a doubt it was the right decision, and although my life isn't 'perfect' right now, I am happy. And grateful for what I have.

What are YOU thankful for this year?

 

 

 

Oh, and I'm grateful for these glorious pumpkin muffins. I made these almost exactly 2 years ago, and have been itching for the opportunity to make them again. They're a little more decadent for a muffin, so they won't be making a regular appearance on my table. But it's Thanksgiving! And that pretty much is a go-free card to shove your face full of good food and wear stretchy pants all weekend.

These muffins are incredible. If you haven't seen them on Pinterest or on another blog, you're in for something special! Light, moist, full of flavour, (borderline dessert-ish) but still healthy enough to eat for breakfast or a snack... what? Pumpkin and whole wheat flour makes it healthy. Ish.

Make them. Do it do it do it. And then thank me.

Yield: 12 muffins
Ingredients:

For the filling:
4 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1/2 cup powdered sugar

For the muffins:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
3/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 + 1/8 teaspoon cloves
1/4 teaspoon ginger
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
2 large eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup pumpkin puree (not pumpkin pie mix)
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons oil

For the topping:
1/4 cup sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons flour
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoon cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces

Directions:

To make filling, combine cream cheese and powdered sugar in a medium bowl or food processor and mix well until blended and smooth. Transfer the mixture to a piece of plastic wrap and shape into a log about 1 1/2 inches in diameter. Smooth the plastic wrap tightly around the log, and reinforce with a piece of foil. Transfer to the freezer and chill until at least slightly firm, at least 2 hours.

To make the topping, combine the sugar, flour and cinnamon in a small bowl or food processor. Add in the butter pieces and cut into dry ingredients with a pastry blender or two forks until the mixture is coarse and crumbly, OR if using food processor, gently pulse until mixture is crumbly. Transfer to the refrigerator until ready to use.

To make the muffins, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Line muffin pans with paper liners. In a medium bowl, combine the flours, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger, salt and baking soda; whisk to blend. In the bowl of a stand mixer combine the eggs, sugar, pumpkin puree and oil. Mix on medium-low speed until blended. With the mixer on low speed, add in the dry ingredients, mixing until just incorporated.

To assemble the muffins, fill each muffin well with a small amount of batter, just enough to cover the bottom of the liner (1-2 tablespoons, a medium cookie scoop works well for this). Slice the log of cream cheese into 12 equal pieces. Place a slice of the cream cheese mixture into each muffin well. Divide the remaining batter among the muffin cups, placing on top of the cream cheese to cover completely. Sprinkle a small amount of the topping mixture over each of the muffin tops.

Bake for 20-25 minutes. Transfer to a wire rack and let cool completely before serving.

Source: adapted from Annie's Eats, who adapted from BakeSpace.
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Mini Whole Wheat Citrus Muffins

I made these muffins on a complete whim, but I'm so glad that I did! Actually, not a complete whim- I had read a blog posting on some mini oatmeal peanut butter muffins and was thinking of making those, although was a bit skeptical because I know oatmeal is significantly lacking in flavour. As I was breaking out my new Pampered Chef mini muffin pan a little booklet fell out, which contained a recipe for 'Lil' Citrus Muffins'. Although I immediately changed my mind to wanting to make these citrus muffins, I took one look at the recipe and realized that the ingredients would produce a 'muffin' much more close to a cupcake. The original recipe even has a butter-sugar topping for the 'muffins'! Frankly, it sounded delicious, but I really couldn't justify making 2 dozen secretly-cupcake-muffins just for myself. So I revamped the recipe to make it a little healthier!

These mini muffins were so good that I promptly ate 4 while they were still warm out of the oven. I'm not even ashamed to admit it. They are teensy-tiny and relatively healthy, and really, 4 minis is likely not even equivalent to 1 regular sized muffin. So go and make these!! And then stuff your face with them while they're still warm. Because trust me on this, that's when they taste the best!

Ingredients:
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 cup butter, softened
scant 1/2 cup sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt, or low-fat sour cream
1/2 teaspoon vanilla
2 teaspoons orange, lemon or lime zest (or a combination!)

Directions:
Preheat oven to 375 degrees F. Line mini muffin pan with mini liners or spray lightly with non-stick cooking spray.

In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt; mix well.

In a medium bowl, whisk butter and sugar until well blended (either by hand if butter is soft enough, or with an electric hand-mixer). Add egg; whisk until smooth. Mix in Greek yogurt, vanilla and zest. Add flour mixture; mix until dry ingredients are moistened, being careful not to over mix.

Using a small cookie scoop, drop a scoop of batter into each cup. Batter makes enough for 22-24 muffins. Bake 12-13 minutes or until light golden brown. Cool in pan for several minutes, then remove and allow to cool completely on a rack.

Source: adapted from The Pampered Chef, 2006. Pin It

Blueberry Muffins

As Sean and I were doing some grocery shopping the other day, we noticed that blueberries were on sale: 2 pints for $5.00. We hummed and hawed over it for awhile, not convinced that they would be great or that they were worth spending the money on. So I thought, well, let's buy them and if they're a total flop, I'll just put them into blueberry muffins. Let me tell you, those were some of the tastiest blueberries I've bought from a grocery store at this time of year! We consumed 1 pint all in one sitting, and although I debated on eating the second pint just as they were, I decided I would stick with making muffins and buy more blueberries if they were still on sale (which sadly, I think they are not).

It turned out to be a great decision to use the second pint for muffins! I did a simple search for blueberry muffins online and found this one. After reading the reviews, it looked promising enough, so I gave it a shot. The muffin batter is fairly plain, so it really allows the blueberries to shine through and be the star of the dish. Using unripe or mushy blueberries would not have been ideal for this recipe. I thought about omitting the crumble on top, simply because I was feeling lazy, but then realized that I had some leftover crumble in the freezer from muffins I made a few months ago. It turned out to be a good choice, as the crumble was like the icing on a cake (maybe not quite as awesome as icing on cake...). To make the muffins slightly healthier, I chose to sub in some whole wheat flour for the all-purpose flour. I've reflected the changes below.

Yield: 8 large muffins
Ingredients:
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup whole wheat flour (alternatively you could use all white flour, or add in more ww flour to your liking)
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/3 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/2 cup milk (you may need to add more than this- I ended up just dumping some extra milk in without measuring because the batter was too think. I likely added at least a few tablespoons extra)
1 cup fresh blueberries
For the crumble:
1/4 cup sugar
1 tablespoon flour
1/8 cup butter, cubed
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F. Line muffin cups with liners.

Combine the flours, sugar, salt, and baking powder in a medium sized bowl. In a separate small bowl, mix together the vegetable oil, egg, and milk (start with 1/2 cup milk). Mix the liquid mixture into the flour mixture until just combined. If the batter is very thick and more like a cookie dough batter, slowly mix in milk until the batter is whisk-able. Fold in the blueberries. Fill muffin cups full to the top, and sprinkle with crumb topping mixture.

To make the crumb topping: Mix together the sugar, flour, butter and cinnamon. Use a fork to smash the butter into the other ingredients, until it resembles a course crumble.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes in the oven, or until when a toothpick is inserted it comes out clean.

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