Caffeinated Comfort: Pumpkin Muffins with Coffee Cream Cheese Frosting

 A Fusion of Fall Spice and Coffee Indulgence

Welcome to a delightful twist on classic pumpkin muffins! This recipe is a perfect marriage of seasonal flavors—warm pumpkin, aromatic spices, and a decadent coffee cream cheese frosting. With each bite, you can experience the cozy essence of fall combined with the indulgence of a caffeinated treat. Follow along step by step to create your own batch of these deliciously unique muffins.

Ingredients:

For the muffins:

1 15 oz can pumpkin puree

1 1/2 cup flour

1/2 cup white sugar

1/2 cup brown sugar

1/4 cup sour cream

2 eggs

1 teaspoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

For the frosting:

1 stick butter, softened

1/2 brick regular cream cheese, softened

2 cups powdered sugar

2 tablespoons instant coffee

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3 tablespoons milk

Tools:

can opener

mixing bowls (large and small)

muffin tin or sheet pan

muffin liners or baking cups

spoons

measuring cups and spoons

mixer (hand or stand)

Preheat your oven to 350 and let's get dessert rolling!

Begin with the can opener - go ahead and crack open the can of pumpkin. If you only have pumpkin pie filling on hand, you can sub half a 30-oz can of that, but keep in mind how much sweeter it will make the final result.

Dump the pumpkin into the mixing bowl (use a spoon to scrape the sides of the can to be certain you get all of it), then add the eggs and sour cream to the bowl and stir together, making sure to break the yolks on the eggs so they're properly incorporated.

Measure your dry ingredients - sugars, flour, spices, salt, baking powder - into another dish and mix them up. Add the dry ingredients slowly to the wet ingredients, stirring as you go. Try to avoid ending up with any clumps here, but don't stir it to death. Overdoing it will cause the muffins to be rubbery.

Once you've got the batter thoroughly mixed (but not overmixed), portion it out into your lined muffin tin or baking cups. We used baking cups on a sheet pan because these fall themed cups were just too cute to pass up! Don't worry too much about overfilling; these won't rise very much at all in the baking process.

Pop the muffins into the oven and set a timer for 25 minutes. 

Take a clean mixing bowl and put your softened butter and cream cheese into it, and put the beaters into your mixer. We used a hand mixer, mostly because it would have taken much longer to get the stand mixer out and ready.

Whip the butter and the cream cheese on at least medium speed until it's all fluffy.

With the mixer on, add the powdered sugar slowly. A second set of hands helps here. If you have a little helper you don't mind getting a smidge messy, feel free to recruit them. You don't have to get the powdered sugar fully incorporated at this stage. The goal here is just to get it into the bowl and start combining it with the butter and cream cheese.

In a shallow dish (or repurposed yogurt container if you're us), dissolve your instant coffee granules in the little bit of milk you've measured out. It shouldn't take much stirring. Once it's all one color and you've minimized the amount of sunken coffee bits, pour the mixture into the cream cheese/butter/sugar dish and turn the mixer back on. Mix thoroughly, until the whole thing is one color.

By now your muffins should be coming out of the oven. It'll be too soon to frost them (they're much too hot), so set them aside to cool and tuck your frosting into the fridge until they're ready.

Once the muffins are cooled, pull the frosting back out of the fridge and put your dessert together.

If you're feeling fancy, you can break out a pastry bag and tip and get ready to pipe the frosting. But we swear, it still tastes just as good if all you do is take a spoon or flexible spatula and drop a dollop on top of each muffin.

Enjoy after dinner with a big cup of coffee.

As the aroma of freshly baked pumpkin muffins fills your kitchen, remember that Appliance Rescue Service is here to ensure your cooking experiences are always seamless. Share your baking success on our Facebook page and take a moment to reach out to us at (214) 599-0055 or our website, for any appliance needs. Whether it's repairing a freezer or running routine maintenance on your oven, we're dedicated to keeping your kitchen running smoothly. Treat yourself to these delightful muffins and elevate your fall baking game with a touch of caffeinated comfort. Enjoy this flavorful creation with a steaming cup of coffee and savor the season's joys in every bite.

Additional Reading 

Easy No-Cook Not Quite a Cannoli 

Chocolate Raspberry Thumbprints

Harvest Bliss: Cranberry Pumpkin Nut Bread

A Decadent Fusion of Fall Flavors

Get ready for a delicious adventure with our Cranberry Pumpkin Nut Bread—a recipe that embodies the flavors of fall. It’s not just a bread; it's a hearty combination of pumpkin, spices, and delightful textures. Although it demands a bit of attention, trust me, every effort pays off in each aromatic slice.

Ingredients:

1 cup water, warm, plus enough water to fill a kettle

1 tablespoon active dry yeast

1 15 ounce can plain pumpkin

2 tablespoons sugar

1 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon

1/2 teaspoon ground ginger

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1/2 teaspoon salt

4 1/2 cups flour, divided

1/2 cup chopped walnuts

1/4 cup dried cranberries

Tools:

parchment paper

Dutch oven, caldero, or four loaf pans

measuring cups and spoons

mixing bowls

tea kettle or pot for water

smaller, heat-proof bowl

colander

clean kitchen towel

Quick word of caution: This will be a messy, time consuming recipe! Do not attempt to do this on Thanksgiving. If you're an experienced baker of bread, you might pull it off. But if you're us... You'll just create a mess and not have the bread til after dinner. 

Well before you intend to get anything going for this recipe, start a tea kettle or a pot of water on the stove. You can use the time while you wait for it to reach a boil to get your other ingredients out.

Once you have all your ingredients handy, begin by measuring your yeast into warm water and setting it aside to double in size. This should take five minutes or so.

Measure the flour, stopping at three and a half cups. Reserve the additional cup in another bowl. Don't forget to level your flour! It's going to be sticky dough and you'll likely be tempted to add more flour, but don't fall for it, and definitely don't sabotage yourself by starting with more than you meant to.

Include your sugar, salt and spices in the dry ingredients. We want to see them evenly mixed into your flour before any wet ingredients join the party, that way you don't end up with bland spots and spots that have too much cinnamon or something.

Around this point, our kettle usually begins to boil. Remove it from the heat, toss the cranberries in the heat proof bowl, and cover them with boiling water. Ignore them for five minutes or so - we just want them to be partially rehydrated so they're not sticky lumps in the bread later. After they've had time to absorb some of the water, strain the water out through the colander.

Add the pumpkin and the yeast mixture to the dry ingredients and stir well. Once you've got a relatively uniform consistency, you can add in the chopped walnuts and the cranberries. This is also the first point that your reserved cup of flour will make an appearance - work about half of it into the sticky dough you have here.

Cover the bowl with a clean kitchen towel and let it rise on the counter for three hours.

At the three hour mark, move the dough to the fridge, keeping it covered with the towel. Keep it in the fridge for at least an hour, or as long as overnight (if you're a forward thinker and got this done long enough ahead of time that you can refrigerate it overnight! Congrats on being wiser than us).

The chilled dough should be easier to work with, but we still recommend a set of food service gloves for this part. Take that reserved flour and dust a surface - a cutting board, the counter, some parchment, the table - whatever you have. We recommend parchment paper for ease of lifting later. Turn the cold dough out onto this floured surface and work it until it's smooth. Allow it to rise again where it sits for about an hour.

Preheat the oven to 450. That is not a typo, we really do mean 450.

In the photos, we've done this as one large boule in a covered pan - but we find the results to be much better if done as two small loaves in average loaf pans, and doing two loaves reduces the cooking time and the risk of burning dramatically. Learning from our mistakes here.

Toss two loaf pans into the oven to heat up with it, keeping the other two loaf pans out on the counter. Divide your dough in two and shape into two even-sized loaves. Place each loaf on its own sheet of parchment paper.

Once the oven has come up to proper temperature, don your oven mitts or grab a towel and remove the pans. Using the parchment to transfer them, place one loaf into each pan. Place both pans onto the middle rack of the oven. Invert the cool pans over top of the pans in the oven (we're using them like the lid of the Dutch oven here). Set a timer for 15 minutes.

At the 15-minute mark, remove the covers and set them aside to cool. Bake the loaves uncovered for another 15 minutes. When the timer is up, turn the oven off and let the loaves sit in there for another five to ten minutes before removing them. Use the parchment to lift them. Allow them to cool before cutting with a serrated knife.

As you savor every bite of this Cranberry Pumpkin Nut Bread, remember that Appliance Rescue Service is here for all your home needs. Share your baking success on our Facebook page and feel free to contact us for any appliance-related queries at (214) 599-0055 or through our website. From repairs to routine maintenance, count on us for all your major appliance requirements. Let the lingering aroma of this delightful bread remind you that we're dedicated to ensuring your home runs smoothly.

Additional Reading 

Impress Your Guests with This Easy-to-Make Apple Pecan French Toast Bake

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