Today is pumpkin’s turn to shine. Or at least it should be, but after busting my butt last night to create perfect pumpkin swirl muffins, my dog decided that he would eat every last one while we slept. Fifteen muffins in all. I guess they were good. 🤨

Damn Dog Ruins Everything…

Not only does he wake me up in the middle of the night to go out and knocks over the garbage on a daily basis, he ruined my breakfast plans. I was waiting to have pumpkin swirl muffins for breakfast. They smelled so delicious while they were baking…my mouth was watering, but I had already had a Apple Streusel Muffin earlier, so I didn’t want to go overboard on the baked goods.

As a result I lost out. My daughter, who never procrastinates when food is concerned, managed to snag a muffin before our $%&* dog helped himself to the muffins on the counter (tucked away in plastic bags in the far recesses of the counter). She loved them and was also very upset there were no additional muffins for breakfast. Pin This For Later

At Least These Pumpkin Swirl Muffins Were Definitely Quick & Easy

That’s the only saving grace to not being able to taste the fruit of my labor. Oh, and also our Echo Dot came yesterday so I was having so much fun using that while I baked. Did you know all you have to say is “Alexa, play me the top pop songs of 1989” and you can listen to songs of your youth for hours??? Or at least, songs of my youth.

I highly recommend snagging one of these babies.

This muffin, unlike it’s predecessor, was only two parts to create the batter. First I mixed pumpkin puree, brown sugar, granulated sugar, eggs, oil, and vanilla extract in my stand mixer. Then I whisked the dry ingredients: all purpose flour, pumpkin spice, ground cloves, baking soda, and salt together.

*Note: if you don’t have pumpkin spice or can’t find it, you can make it with equal parts of nutmeg, ginger, and all spice, and double cinnamon (for example: 1 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp. nutmeg, ginger, all spice).*

Once the batter was made, I poured it into the muffin cups—about half way.  Then I made the cream “Swirl” part of the muffin by mixing the softened (room temperature) cream cheese, granulated sugar, egg, and vanilla extract.

This is When the Swirly Magic Happens

Drop a dollop of the cream cheese mixture into the half filled muffin cups. (A dollop is somewhere between a teaspoon and tablespoon…use your judgement.) Then spoon some more of the pumpkin batter on top. Taking a toothpick, swirl the filling until you can see streaks of the cream cheese: Then they’re ready for the oven. Bake at 425 for 5 minutes and then turn the heat down to 350 for the remaining 10 minutes. I picked up this tip from another muffin recipe I made—this makes the muffins rise quickly and gives it that high fluffy appearance of bakery muffins. The result? I can almost smell them now! These pumpkin swirl muffins would have been amazing with a pumpkin spice coffee in the morning: Too bad, I’ll never know. Unless you guys can make these pumpkin swirl muffins and send some my way? I promise, I’ll keep them far away from the dog’s reach. Pin This Now

• 1 can (15 oz) pumpkin puree
• 1/2 cup olive oil
• 3 eggs
• 1 3/4 cup All purpose flour
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 tsp ground cloves
• 1 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1 TBSP pumpkin pie spice
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 3 tsp vanilla
• 8 oz cream cheese