Pumpkin Cream Cheese Swirl Muffins

These easy, tasty Pumpkin Cream Cheese Swirl Muffins make a perfect fall breakfast or snack. I don’t know about you, but as soon as autumn hits I just want to put on an apron and start baking. I want apple baking, pumpkin baking, banana bread baking. I’m not usually a big baker, but in fall, I just want to bake. These muffins were the perfect way to satisfy my fall baking urges in a lightened up way! Not only are these muffins simple and delicious, but each one is just 146 calories or 5 WW Points each on the current Weight Watchers plan. To view your current WW Points for this recipe and track it in the WW app or site, click here!

You’ll love how easy these Pumpkin Cream Cheese Swirl Muffins are to make and you likely have most if not all of the ingredients on hand already, so you can make these muffins whenever the mood strikes. They’re perfect to make once and eat all week or you can always freeze some for the future. I love these for breakfast alongside an egg or some fruit or on their own as a snack. I have to pack a healthy snack for my daughter for kindergarten and these work great for that too.

Classic pumpkin spice flavor makes these muffins the perfect autumn treat! I have been seeing pumpkin cream cheese muffins on the menu at Tim Hortons and Starbucks for weeks and they look amazing so I decided to make my own lighter version. These muffins have significantly less sugar than many similar recipes, so they aren’t super sweet, but I find them just-sweet-enough to taste absolutely delicious. I’m really thrilled with how these turned out! Additionally, my five year old couldn’t get enough of them and would have happily eaten them for breakfast, lunch and dinner until they were gone.

Recipe Notes

• Canned Pumpkin: Make sure you’re using plain, unsweetened pumpkin puree and not a can of pumpkin pie filling! If you need help figuring out how to use the rest of the can, check out the pumpkin category of my recipe index.
• Cream Cheese: I suggest using 1/3 less fat cream cheese, which is also labeled Neufchatel cheese. It tastes great and works well in recipes, but is lighter than full fat cream cheese. I never really suggest using fat free cream cheese because in my opinion the flavor sacrifice is just not worth it.
• Alternative Sweeteners: I haven’t personally tried making these using a zero-calorie sweetener in place of sugar, but I feel confident that it would work out just fine. Just make sure the sweetener you’re using has a 1:1 substitution ratio with sugar so that the sweetness level isn’t off.
• Refrigeration/Storage: I recommend storing these muffins in the refrigerator because of the cream cheese topping. I like cold muffins anyway, but you can always let one sit out or pop it in the microwave to warm it up if you prefer!
• Add-Ins: I think walnuts or pecans would be great in these if you’d like to add nuts! Keep in mind that this will of course affect the nutrition information/WW points listed if you’re tracking either.

To Freeze:

I love how easily these Pumpkin Cream Cheese Swirl Muffins come together, and they’re great to bake once and eat all week! I haven’t frozen them yet because we just keep eating them all, but I’ve frozen similar muffins very successfully by just wrapping each one in plastic wrap once they’re completely cool and putting them all together in a Ziploc freezer bag. You can either defrost them to room temp or heat them up in the microwave before eating. I love having a freezer full of muffin options at my disposal at breakfast time!

Want more tasty lightened up Muffins?

Looking for more tasty varieties of lightened up muffin recipes? Check out my Triple Berry Muffins, Banana Zucchini Muffins, Morning Glory Muffins, Strawberry Rhubarb Muffins, Carrot Muffins, Chocolate Raspberry Muffins, Apple Cinnamon Muffins, Banana Blueberry Muffins, Pumpkin Zucchini Muffins, and more in the Muffins section of my recipe index!

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5 from 4 votes

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Pumpkin Cream Cheese Swirl Muffins

Prep Time: 15 minutes mins

Cook Time: 20 minutes mins

Total Time: 35 minutes mins

Calories: 146kcal

These easy, tasty Pumpkin Cream Cheese Swirl Muffins make a perfect lightened up fall breakfast or snack!

Yield: 12 muffins

Ingredients

For the Muffins

• 1 large egg
• 1 cup canned pumpkin puree
• ¼ cup granulated white sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 4 tablespoons light butter, melted (I use Land O’Lakes light butter spread with canola oil in the tub)
• 1 ½ cups all-purpose flour
• 1 ½ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt

For the Cream Cheese Swirl

• 4 oz 1/3 less fat cream cheese, softened to room temperature
• 1 egg yolk
• 2 tablespoons granulated white sugar
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

• Pre-heat the oven to 375 degrees. Lightly mist a 12-count standard-sized muffin tin with cooking spray and set aside.
• In a large mixing bowl, add the egg, pumpkin, ¼ cup sugar, and 1 teaspoon vanilla extract and stir together until well combined. Add the melted butter and stir together.
• In a separate mixing bowl, add the flour, pumpkin pie spice, baking soda, baking powder, and salt and whisk until combined. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients and stir together until combined into a batter. Spoon the batter evenly amongst the wells in the prepared muffin tin.
• Place the four ingredients for the cream cheese swirl into a separate mixing bowl and use a hand mixer to combine them until smooth. Add a dollop of the cream cheese mixture on top of the pumpkin muffin batter in each muffin tin well and then use a toothpick to swirl them together on top of each muffin.
• Place the muffin tin into the heated oven and bake for 18-20 minutes.

Notes

WW Points per muffin: 5 (Points calculated using the recipe builder on weightwatchers.com)

To view your WW PersonalPoints for this recipe and track it in the WW app or site, click here!

Nutrition Information per (1 muffin) serving:
146 calories, 21 g carbs, 7 g sugars, 6 g fat, 2 g saturated fat, 3 g protein, 1 g fiber, 191 mg sodium (from myfitnesspal.com)

Weight Watchers Points Plus:
4 per (1 muffin) serving (P+ calculated using the recipe builder on weightwatchers.com)

Author: Emily Bites

Course: Breakfast, Snack

Cuisine: American

Keyword: Fall Baking, Healthy Muffins, Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins, WW Baking