Pumpkin Spice Muffins Recipe

 Pumpkin Spice Muffins 
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 tablespoon cinnamon (I gave it a few extra shakes for good measure)
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1 teaspoon ground cloves
1 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cup pumpkin (1 can)
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla

cream cheese filling:
4 oz cream cheese (I used reduced fat and kept it cold so that it wouldn't run everywhere)
2/3 cup powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
2. Whisk together all of the muffin ingredients (no special way...just put them all in a mixing bowl and give them a good whisk).
3. Mix together cream cheese filling  ingredients.
4. Using my 1 1/2 T cookie scoop (cookie scoops are one of my FAVORITE kitchen tools.  They make baking so easy.) I put one scoop of muffin mix in the bottom of each muffin liner and gently evened it out across the bottom.  Then I put about a 1 1/2 teaspoon scoop of cream cheese filling right in the center but don't spread it out.  Then I put another 1 1/2 T cookie scoop full of muffin mix right on top of the little dollop of cream cheese and gently spread it out around the edges so the cream cheese was hidden.
5. I gave each muffin a little shake of cinnamon sugar and baked them for approximately 15 minutes.

Yield: 12 muffins

Tip: Pumpkin baked goods are even better cold so keep them in the fridge!