Cheesecake Pumpkin Muffins

In our previous post about pumpkin alfredo pasta we mentioned having extra canned pumpkin on hand after making a crowd-pleasing desert. Now we'll look at how we put together these composite goodies, which combine elements of both muffins and cheesecake.

In honor of the fall season we wanted to go with pumpkin muffins, but cheesecake is a tried and true desert we can't do without, so the two got mixed together. To start these delicious stuffed treats, Megan whips up our usual cheesecake base with cream cheese, sugar, eggs, and vanilla.

There's three main components before we start assembling everything: the cheesecake filling, the dry ingredients, and the brown sugar/pumpkin mixture. The dry ingredients are standard muffin fixings including flour, sugar, and baking soda.

Next we add canned pumpkin, softened butter, crushed nuts, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger to the brown sugar and all three main components are complete.

The pumpkin/brown sugar mixture gets folded into the dry ingredients and lightly mixed.

Eventually we get this, which is essentially pumpkin bread batter and is a nice consistency partway between wet and dry.

To assemble, we place paper liners in a muffin tin and then lay down a spoonful of pumpkin batter. Next, we spoon in a layer of cheesecake filling.

Once the cheesecake filling is in, we top the muffins with another layer of pumpkin batter.

About 20 minutes of baking later, we get these beautiful, moist muffins mixing the fall flavor of pumpkin bread with the any-time deliciousness of cheesecake.

You can of course top these with fall-themed frosting, or simply top them with a mixture of brown sugar, butter, and nuts for the last few minutes of cooking.