I decided to reverse-engineer a pumpkin cream cheese muffin after the underwhelming experience of buying one from StarBucks. This is my first attempt at making pumpkin muffins, and I made them the morning after seeing Nine Inch Nails live, which really has nothing to do with making muffins, but there you go. The muffins were edible, but have room for improvement. Trent Reznor, I am happy to report, does not require any improvement.

(Update Oct 19: round 2 is much better)

I was surprised to see that the ingredient cost of this made this the most expensive thing I have ever baked, even steeper than the the Bailey’s chocolate cheesecake. Yikes.

Time required: 1 hour

Yields: 14

Total cost if you have none of the ingredients: $79 if iced, $54 if plain

Cost per muffin: $5.64 if iced, $3.85 if plain

Kitchen implements I used:

• Nemo the KitchenAid
• muffin tin + large liners

Muffin ingredients:

• 1½ C flour
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon
• ½ tsp ground nutmeg
• ½ tsp ground ginger
• ½ tsp fine sea salt
• ½ tsp baking soda
• ¼ tsp ground cloves
• ¼ tsp pumpkin pie spice
• ¼ tsp all spice
• 2 eggs
• 1 C packed brown sugar
• pods from half of a vanilla bean, split and scraped
• 2 TBSP vegetable oil
• 2 C of pure pumpkin
• a sprinkle of turbinado sugar

Frosting ingredients:

• 1 block of cream cheese, softened
• 4 TBSP butter, softened
• 1 TBSP milk
• 1 TBSP lemon juice
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 4 C icing sugar

Instructions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 350°F / 176°C and put muffin liners into pan.

2. Combine in a bowl: flour and spices.

3. In mixer; cream the eggs and sugar until smooth.

4. Mix in canned pumpkin, vegetable oil, and vanilla bean pods. (Reserve the shell for something else).

5. Gradually add flour mixture to wet, and don’t overbeat.

6. Spoon into tray, and dust with turbinado sugar.

7. Bake 25 min. (Checked at 20 and but still too springy.)

8. Cool in pan 5 min before transferring to rack.

9. Make the icing by combining everything in one bowl. This is precise science, people.

10. Use a knife to score a circle around the muffin tops and press the knife down, then lift up, and pry out the top. You will have a little muffin cone lid. Slice off the bottom part until you have a thin top remaining. Now stuff that bad boy with cream cheese and replace the top.

Verdict: They were good, but the muffin texture really changed overnight, they seem overly moist today. I tried one without icing, and the pumpkin was a bit too strong. Then again cream cheese icing is also a very strong flavour, so… hard to say. I sent my friend home with one but forgot to ice it. Oops. Overall I was pleased with how it turned out, and I think for round 2 I’ll add a few more spices, and cut back on the pumpkin and see how that goes.

Playlist: Nine Inch Nails – Terrible Lie