Pumpkin Spice Muffins with Cream Cheese Frosting

Autumn has arrived, and I always have an urge to start baking and cooking hearty meals that take hours on the stove.  I wanted something yummy to make, and was thinking of cupcakes - but this quickly transformed into muffins.  Found a great recipe on The Pioneer Woman.com website.  I doubled the recipe because I wanted to make the muffins a little bit larger - and I wanted to have enough to share with neighbors and take a few to work.    I added cloves to the muffin batter and used less butter in the cream cheese frosting.  The muffins can be frosted, or left plain.  They are wonderful either way.  Great recipe - totally easy - and completely delicious!  Below is the recipe for 12 muffins, I doubled everything, and ended up with 21 muffins.

Ingredients:

FOR THE MUFFINS:

1 cup All-purpose Flour

½ cup sugar

2 teaspoons Baking Powder

1½ teaspoon Cinnamon

¼ teaspoons Ground Ginger

Pinch of cloves, about 1/8 tsp.

½ teaspoons Nutmeg

½ teaspoons Salt

4 Tablespoons Butter, cut into pieces

1 cup (heaping) Pumpkin Puree

½ cup Evaporated Milk

1 whole Egg

1½ teaspoon Vanilla

½ cups Golden Raisins (optional!)

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FOR THE TOPPING:

2 Tablespoons Sugar

1 teaspoon Cinnamon

¼ teaspoons Nutmeg

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FOR FROSTING: (When I doubled this I used 8 oz of cream cheese and still only 1/4 cup of softened butter.)

¼ cups Softened Butter

4 ounces, weight Cream Cheese

½ pounds Powdered Sugar

½ teaspoons Vanilla

Directions:

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Generously grease 12 muffin tins, or place paper baking cups in the tins and lightly spray with nonstick cooking spray.

Sift flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves and salt. Cut in butter with two knives or a pastry blender until it is fully incorporated.

In a separate bowl, mix together pumpkin, evaporated milk, egg, and vanilla. Pour pumpkin mixture into the flour mixture. Add raisins. Fold gently until mixture is just combined.

Pour into a greased muffin pan or paper baking cups. The batter hardly ever fills all twelve unless you keep it down to 1/2 full. Sprinkle with cinnamon-sugar-nutmeg mixture over the top of each unbaked muffin.

Bake for 25 minutes. Allow to cool in pan for 15 minutes, then remove and allow to cool. Ice with cream cheese frosting.

To make the frosting, mix all ingredients on high until soft and whipped. Spread onto completely cooled muffins, or place into a large pastry bag with a large star tip and go crazy! Store in the fridge, as icing will soften at room temperature.

Click here for printable recipe.