Pumpkin Cream Cheese Mini Muffins w/Frosting

OK, so my daughter had her school Christmas Party today, and I signed up to do the Christmas snack treats. The school kind of frowns on sugary stuff, and likes healthy snacks when possible. If frosting is included, it needs to be white and minimal. With these ideas in hand, I decided to go for pumpkin cream cheese muffins with a cream cheese frosting and some cake toppers. I got the mini muffin pans at an estate sale about 2 or 3 months back (great buy -- I think $2 a pan).  My pans only hold 12 muffins. I saw on Amazon.com that they have some that are non-stick and hold 24 muffins -- boy, that would be slick!

I got the recipe off of www.allrecipes.com. They came out fantastic.

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Pumpkin-Loaf/Detail.aspx

Pumpkin Loaf

Ingredients

• 4 ounces cream cheese, softened
• 1/4 cup margarine
• 1 1/4 cups white sugar
• 2 eggs
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
• 1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease one 9x5x3 inch loaf pan.
2. Put softened cheese, butter, and sugar in mixing bowl. Cream together well. Beat in eggs one at a time until blended. Mix in pumpkin.
3. In another bowl combine flour, soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, cloves, and walnuts. Stir until thoroughly mixed. Pour all at once over batter. Stir just enough to moisten. Turn into greased 9x5x3 inch loaf pan.
4. Bake at 350 degrees F (175 degrees C) for 60-70 minutes until inserted toothpick comes out clean. Cool 10 minutes in pan. Remove to rack to finish cooling.

I had bought really cute little muffin cups to help spruce up the mini muffins, but my grandmother had made a point earlier in the week in a phone conversation -- "I always grease the muffin pans, and then put the muffins into the little paper cups, that way people don't lose half of the muffin when they pull the paper off"....hmmm. OK! So I greased the pans. Here are the muffins coming out of the oven.

And here are the muffins after they came out of the pans, they turned out so perfect! I cooked them for about 40 minutes btw. Hard to judge how long they should take since they are not "loaves".

Next, I put the little muffin cups around them. They were black with little white and blue snowflake designs. Very wintery.

I used the cream cheese frosting recipe to make a tasty frosting topper. Like I said, the school doesn't like too much frosting, so I wanted the frosting to be a little bit thin so that it wouldn't stack up on the cupcakes too much. I added some white sugar sprinkles to the tops and then put the snowmen cake toppers into each cupcake.

According to my daughter (6 yrs old), her teachers and "everyone in the class" wants the recipe they were so good. I'm not sure if that's exactly true, but it sure tells me that the mini cupcakes were a hit.

Here is the recipe for the frosting:

http://allrecipes.com/Recipe/Cream-Cheese-Frosting-II-2/Detail.aspx

Cream Cheese Frosting

Ingredients

• 2 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese, softened
• 1/2 cup butter, softened
• 2 cups sifted confectioners' sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Directions

1. In a medium bowl, cream together the cream cheese and butter until creamy. Mix in the vanilla, then gradually stir in the confectioners' sugar. Store in the refrigerator after use.

This article has been reproduced at my new blog website and can also be found here: http://www.bakingindallas.com/pumpkin-cream-cheese-mini-muffins-wfrosting/