Pumpkin Cream Cheese Swirl Muffins

I am officially old.  You want to know, how I know, that I'm old?  This is the headline that caught my eye this week:  
Gen Z calls out thumbs-up emoji as ‘rude’, wants to ban 9 other

😳 It sounds ridiculous, but it's true.  I'll spare you the details of the article but what you need to know is that these teens and 20 somethings have complied a list of 10 emojis that they've deemed to be "out of date" and called for them to be cancelled all together.🤷🏻‍♀️ And yes, it's pretty much a comprehensive list of emojis that I use on my blog - every single day. 🤦🏻‍♀️

I know you're curious, so for all my non-Gen Z followers, here's the list of super uncool emojis that are on the "cancelled" list: 👍🏻 ❤️ 👌🏻 ✅ 💩 😭 🙈 👏🏻 💋 😬  

You know you're old when you realize that, not only do you use all of the questionable emojis, you don't even understand why in the world a red heart is on that list!?! 🤣  In any case, I want to officially apologize to all of my blog readers that I've accidentally offended by my use of potentially rude emojis.🫥  Here's to making an effort to using some new emojis and just hoping that I use them in the right way.  🫡

I have absolutely zero confidence in my ability to learn to use new emojis appropriately, but not to worry, I'm much more optimistic about my ability to bake a new muffin recipe.👩🏻‍🍳😂  I feel like I've already used too many words on this blog so my Pumpkin Cream Cheese Swirl Muffins are going to have to speak for themselves.  They really are delicious and best described as ... 🤩.  

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Swirl Muffins
1 ¾ cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon nutmeg
½ teaspoon ground ginger
1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin
2 large eggs
½ cup butter, melted and cooled
1 ¾ cups sugar
1 ½ teaspoons vanilla 
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
1 large egg yolk

Combine ​flour, baking soda, cinnamon, salt, nutmeg and ginger.

Whisk together pumpkin, eggs, butter, 1 ½ c. sugar, and 1 t. vanilla.

Add pumpkin mixture to flour mixture, and whisk until just blended.

Divide batter evenly among greased or paper lined muffin cups.

Stir together cream cheese, egg yolk, ¼ c. sugar and ½ t. vanilla.

Dollop about 1 t. cream cheese onto pumpkin batter in each muffin cup. 

Swirl gently with a wooden skewer.

Bake in a 375 degree oven for 12-14 minutes.  

Cool on wire racks. 

My sweet neighbor gifted me the cutest silicone Fall muffin tray.  I've not had a lot of success with silicone molds but I decided to give it another shot with some Pumpkin Cream Cheese Swirl Muffin batter.  They turned out amazing!  For those of you interested: The mini muffins cooked 14 minutes and the bigger muffins cooked 18.  

Ciao!

Click here for a printable version of this recipe