Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Back on the first day of Fall, Jess & I went shopping at Partridge Creek and of course we had to stop at Starbucks for something warm to drink and a treat. We choose their Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins and were they ever YUMMY! Then a couple of weeks ago I got a phone call from JD up at school asking me for my basic WW pumpkin muffin recipe. While giving him the simple three ingredients recipe, I got to thinking that I could Jazz them up a bit and try to recreate the Starbucks treat and this was the result! (Warning its hard to eat just one.)

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

Ingredients
For the filling:
8 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 Cup powdered sugar
For the topping:
1/2 Cup sugar
5 Tbsp flour
5 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
4 Tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into pieces

For the Muffins
1 Box Spice Cake Mix
15 oz Pumpkin puree (1 can)
1 Egg (Whites)
1/4 Cup Apple sause
2 Tbsp Pumpkin pie spice
1/2 Cup Water

Instructions:
To prepare the filling, combine the cream cheese and powdered sugar in a medium bowl and mix well until blended and smooth. Set aside.

To make the muffins, preheat the oven to 350˚ F. Line muffin pans with paper liners. In a medium bowl, combine the dry cake mix, pumpkin purée, pumpkin pie spice, egg white, apple sauce, water. Stir until dry cake mix is blended.

To make the topping, combine the sugar, flour and cinnamon in a small bowl. Add in the butter pieces and cut into the dry ingredients with a pastry blender or two forks until the mixture is coarse and crumbly.

To assemble the muffins, fill each muffin cup with a small amount of batter, just enough to cover the bottom. Place a a spoonful of the cream cheese into each muffin cup. 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 wells.

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