Delicious cinnamon-spiced pumpkin muffins with a tangy cream cheese frosting. The perfect sweet treat for Autumn (or fall)!
Made with canned pumpkin puree, these easy-to-make muffins are light and fluffy, super moist, and oh so moreish! Don't forget to check out all of my easy to make muffin recipes on the blog!
It wasn't so long ago that canned pumpkin puree was quite difficult to find here in the UK, especially where I live in Cornwall!
Thankfully, over the last few years, I've been spying it in more and more local supermarkets, and now it's pretty easy to get your hands on! Pssst ....I bought mine from Waitrose.
👩🍳 Love muffins? You'll want to try these extra special (but oh-so-simple) Biscoff muffins too!
Jump to:
✔️ Why you'll love this recipe!
Here’s why these are the best pumpkin muffins:
- Uses basic pantry ingredients
- Easy to make and no mixer required
- Warming and aromatic cinnamon spice flavour
- Ready in less than 45 minutes
- Soft and moist thanks to the pumpkin puree
- An easy sweet treat for pumpkin spice season!
- The perfect recipe for Halloween and Bonfire Night parties
- Freezer-friendly (minus the frosting)
🛒 Ingredients
- Canned Pumpkin Puree - usually comes in 400g tins. If you can only find pumpkin pie filling, you can use that but you won't need to add the cinnamon. Also double check the ingredients list for sugar as you may also have to reduce the sugar in the recipe too!
- Dry Ingredients - plain flour, sugar (a mixture of light brown and caster sugar works best), ground cinnamon, and bicarbonate of soda (raising agent).
- Wet Ingredients - natural yogurt, eggs, melted butter.
- Cream Cheese Frosting - full-fat cream cheese, icing sugar, vanilla extract and milk makes a silky smooth frosting!
🔪 Instructions
The recipe card with ingredient quantities and detailed instructions can be found at the bottom of the post
- Combine the dry ingredients in a bowl.
- Whisk the wet ingredients together in a jug then add to the dry ingredients.
- Mix the wet and dry ingredients together gently. Try not to overmix the batter.
- Fold in the pumpkin puree.
- Spoon the muffin batter into a 12 hole muffin tin lined with muffin cases and bake in a preheated oven for 18 minutes.
- Whilst the muffins are cooling, whisk together the frosting ingredients, and once the muffins cool to touch, drizzle or spread the frosting on and allow to set.
💭 Top tips
- Make sure the ingredients are at room temperature before starting the recipe. The melted butter needs to be allowed to cool, before adding it to the wet ingredients.
- Muffin batter does not like being over-mixed. Over mixing results in tough muffins! Gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients without beating. If a few lumps remain, that's Ok and it will not affect the end result.
- In order to get that lovely risen top on the muffin, set the oven 10 degree's higher than needed when preheating, then as soon as you put the muffins in, turn it down to the correct temperature. Works every time!
- Some pumpkin muffin recipes use a whole can of pumpkin puree but I only use half a can, so the muffins aren’t too heavy and have a subtle pumpkin flavor.
🍴 Serving suggestions
These easy pumpkin muffins are perfect with a cup of tea, or glass of cold milk for the little ones. We sometimes eat them for breakfast too!
I always make a batch for our annual Bonfire Night party, which also features this divine honeycomb tiffin, and Bramley apple flapjacks!
📖 Variations
- For an even easier recipe, leave off the cream cheese frosting and dust with icing sugar instead.
- To make pumpkin chocolate chip muffins add 100g of milk chocolate chips to the batter.
- Up the spices and double the ground cinnamon and add ¼ teaspoon of ground cloves too.
- Make them fruity by adding dried cranberries, or raisins to the pumpkin muffins.
- How about some walnuts for added crunch and texture?
- Make a struesel topping for pumpkin crumb cake muffins. You can make the streusel topping I use for these bakery style strawberry muffins. Then, just drizzle the cream cheese frosting over the top - you may need to add a little more milk to the frosting though, to make it a thinner 'drizzling' consistency.
🥡 Storage
The muffins are moist, so keep them in an air-tight container. They'll be good for up to 3 days.
Alternatively, you can freeze the muffins for up to 3 months (minus the cream cheese frosting).
❓ FAQs
Canned pumpkin puree contains 100% pumpkin without any additional spices or sugar. Pumpkin pie filling features pureed pumpkin flavoured with the spices traditionally found in pumpkin pie: cloves, cinnamon, allspice and/or nutmeg, and sometimes added sugar too.
There is currently a shortage due to pumpkin blight, a fungal infection that can potentially wipe out pumpkin harvests. The infection is hitting the Midwest of the United States, known as “the keep pumpkins growing region”!
😋Related recipes
More delicious muffin recipes to try!
- Cinnamon Apple Muffins
- Cherry Muffins
- Blackcurrant and White Chocolate Muffins
- Fresh Cranberry Muffins
- Chocolate Orange Muffins
- Blueberry White Chocolate Muffins
- Blackberry and Lemon Muffins
- Jam Muffins
Tried this recipe? Leave a ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ star rating in the comments!
Recipe
Cinnamon-Spiced Pumpkin Muffins with Cream Cheese Frosting
Ingredients
- 40 g Light Brown Sugar
- 100 g Caster Sugar
- 200 g Plain Flour
- 1 teaspoon Bicarbonate of Soda
- 1 tablespoon Cinnamon
- 100 ml Natural Yogurt
- 2 Eggs large, beaten
- 140 g Butter melted
- 200 g Pumpkin Puree
For the cream cheese frosting
- 120 g Cream Cheese
- 50 g Icing Sugar
- 1 teaspoon Vanilla
- 3-4 tablespoon Milk depending if you want a spreading consistency or drizzling consistency
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 190° (170 fan/ Gas 5/ 375F) and line a 12 hole muffin tin with muffin cases.
- Combine the dry ingredients (light brown sugar, caster sugar, plain flour, bicarbonate of soda, ground cinnamon) in a bowl.
- Whisk the wet ingredients (natural yogurt, eggs, melted butter) together in a jug then gently mix into the dry ingredients, being careful not to overmix.
- Fold in the pumpkin puree.
- Spoon the muffin batter into the 12 hole muffin tin lined with muffin cases and bake in a preheated oven for 18 minutes.
- Whilst the muffins are cooling, whisk together the frosting ingredients (, and once the muffins cool to touch, drizzle or spread the frosting on and allow to set.
Notes
- Make sure the ingredients are at room temperature before starting the recipe. The melted butter needs to be allowed to cool, before adding it to the wet ingredients.
- Muffin batter does not like being over-mixed. Over mixing results in tough muffins! Gently fold the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients without beating. If a few lumps remain, that's Ok and it will not affect the end result.
- In order to get that lovely risen top on the muffin, set the oven 10 degree's higher than needed when preheating, then as soon as you put the muffins in, turn it down to the correct temperature. Works every time!
- For an even easier recipe, leave off the cream cheese frosting and dust with icing sugar instead.
- To make pumpkin chocolate chip muffins add 100g of milk chocolate chips to the batter.
- Up the spices and double the ground cinnamon and add ¼ teaspoon of ground cloves too.
- Make them fruity by adding dried cranberries, or raisins to the pumpkin muffins.
- How about some walnuts for added crunch and texture?
- Make a struesel topping for pumpkin crumb cake muffins. You can make the streusel topping I use for these bakery style strawberry muffins. Then, just drizzle the cream cheese frosting over the top - you may need to add a little more milk to the frosting though, to make it a thinner 'drizzling' consistency.
Don't forget to subscribe to the newsletter to stay up to date with what's cooking in the Effortless Foodie kitchen! You can also follow me on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram too!
Kate
Just gorgeous! I have a can of pumpkin puree I've been wondering what to do with... wondering no more! Thanks for the great recipe.
veenaazmanov
Pumpkin sounds unique and healthy and these Muffin are perfect for a Tea Time Treat.
Shashi
I cut all your ingredients in half and made 6 of these and they were so good! It's a good thing I only made half because 3 have already been polished off! Thanks for this recipe!
Beth
These are so yummy! A perfect treat with my morning coffee. My family is gobbling these up like no tomorrow!
Dannii
I am so excited for all the pumpkin recipes. Muffins are one of my favourites.