Healthy Pumpkin Bran Cream Cheese Muffins

I Can't Believe It's Healthy's Note:

These are my favorite fall/winter muffin. This is a mixture of Healthy Pumpkin Pie Bran Muffins and Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins (Like Starbucks). Delicious! And these are great, full of protein and fibre. You can feel good eating these! Note: if you arent a cheese fan, you may want to use less cheese. Put in how much looks right to your taste. Also, these are not overly sweet so add more sugar if you wish.

• Total Time: 1 hrs
• Prep Time: 30 mins
• Cook Time: 30 mins

Ingredients:

Servings: 11

• ½ cup brown sugar (more for a sweeter muffin)
• 1 cup all-bran cereal
• 1 cup skim milk
• 1 ½ cups whole wheat flour
• 1 tablespoon baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 ½ cups canned pumpkin
• 2 egg whites , beaten
• 1 ¾ teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
• 1 ¼ teaspoons cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract
• 3 -4 ounces fat free cream cheese or 3 -4 ounces light cream cheese , rolled into small balls
• chopped walnuts , to top (optional)
• cinnamon sugar , to top

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 400°F, and grease 12 standard size muffin cups with cooking spray.
2. Roll 3-4 ounces cream cheese into little balls (as big as you perfer, and you can roll them in fine sugar if you like, too), and place single layer on wax paper in freezer while preparing rest of recipe.
3. Mix cereal and milk in a large bowl and set aside for a few minutes to soften.
4. While softening, whisk flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt in large bowl.
5. Whisk pumpkin, egg, pumpkin spice, cinnamon, and vanilla together, then stir in cereal and milk.
6. Fold wet mixture into dry and add in the cream cheese balls **dont over mix**.
7. Fill up each muffin cup, sprinkling the tops with additional cinnamon+sugar, and walnuts.
8. Bake 28-38 minutes and cool on cooling rack. Tastes delish warm, but they also refrigerate and freeze well.
9. SUGGESTION: Would taste delish with cream cheese icing on top :).

Reviews

[peekoos]

All I can say is....WOW! These are amazing and exactly what I was looking for. I wanted a pumpkin muffin that was healthy and offered a lot of fiber, yet was also tasty and moist. The only difference I made was that I used oat bran instead of the All-Bran cereal (that's all I had on hand.) They turned out great, and next time I hope to have some walnuts for the top (I just sprinkled some oats on top instead.) For the cream cheese, instead of rolling into little balls, I cut 4 oz. of cream cheese into 24 equal-sized squares. I filled the muffin tins half ful with batter, put 2 squares on each muffin, then added the remaining batter on top. They turned out great, and thanks again for the recipe!!!

[Chef #843999]

Delicious! Cheesy, pumpkiney, and healthy too! I love the use of bran in this recipe for fibre, and the lovely combination of flavours! So nutritious!

[redneck naturalist]

Wonderful! I did substitute sucanat for the brown sugar, used a whole 15 oz can of pumpkin, and didn't sprinkle the additional sugar on top, and they were still delicious. I shared them at work and they loved them too! It's hard to eat just one though, so it's a good thing they're healthy!