These gluten free pumpkin cream cheese muffins are moist and perfectly spiced. They have a sweet cream cheese swirled through the batter making these an extra delicious muffin! An added bonus, these gluten free pumpkin cream cheese muffins whip up in less than 30 minutes.
Gluten Free Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
Chances are you came across this post looking for the best gluten free pumpkin muffin, and I am so glad you are here because you found it and you will fall in love with this delicious and perfectly spiced muffin.
These gluten free muffins come to about 200 calories making them a perfect go-to snack or breakfast add-on. They are much lighter than your average store or restaurant-bought muffin.
These muffins use about 250g of cubed pumpkin that is steamed and mashed, however, using an entire can of pumpkin puree will be perfect too and make this recipe even easier to make. Be sure to get pure pumpkin puree and not pumpkin pie mix since the latter is also heavily sweetened which is not what we want to add to this recipe.
These gluten free pumpkin muffins are then topped with a swirl of lightly sweetened cream cheese mix that melts perfectly into the muffin while baking. In the batch here, I swirled the cream cheese mix through my batter slightly; just enough to have streaks and not mixed to be incorporated into the batter.
These gluten free muffins disappear quickly due to them being absolutely scrumptious and moist, so feel free to whip up a double batch.
A note on ingredients for these gluten free pumpkin cream cheese muffins
Pumpkin Puree / Mashed Pumpkin
I use cubed pumpkin that is then steamed and mashed for this recipe. You are welcome to use a can of pumpkin puree in place of this if it is easily accessible to you. Make sure you use pure pumpkin puree and not pumpkin pie mixes as these are sweetened and we don’t want to add more sugar to this recipe when not necessary.
Spice
I use a mixed spice blend also known as pumpkin pie spice. If you don’t have access to these blends, you can easily make your own DIY blend by mixing the following:
- 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon ground allspice
This will make 4 teaspoons and you need 1 tablespoon (3 teaspoons) for this recipe. Feel free to double or triple the recipe to store for your next spiced bake.
White granulated sugar
You can replace the white sugar with a 1-to-1 sugar replacement should you want to lower the sugar. My favourite sugar substitute is using Xylitol as it bakes very much like sugar.
Tips on making these gluten free pumpkin cream cheese muffins
Whisk the eggs and sugars until they are pale and fluffy as per instructions. Skipping this step is okay, but your muffins will be less soft and denser and will also yield fewer muffins.
Fill the cupcake pan about 3/4 full since muffins are usually bigger and domes more than cupcakes. That is what we want and it is what makes it a muffin! You can fill the cavities more, but expect overflow that will create muffin tops which most people love too! You just don’t want to fill it so much that your muffin overflows so much that you don’t have any muffin left in the cavities.
Leave the cream cheese out at room temperature a bit to allow it to soften slightly, this will make it easier to then swirl through the mix or on top of the muffins before baking.
I use my gluten free all-purpose flour blend in this recipe as in all of my recipes, you can find the recipe for my blend here.
Storage
Since these muffins have cream cheese, it is best kept in an airtight container in the refrigerator and will last about 5 days. I love these muffins cold, but you can warm them up slightly if you prefer them like that.
You can freeze these gluten free pumpkin muffins for up to 3 months and thaw at room temperature, however, they do taste better fresh or refrigerated.
If you’ve tried this recipe, remember to comment below and let me know how it went.
Love,
Gluten Free Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
Ingredients
Muffins
- 110 g Gluten Free All-Purpose Flour *Recipe link in notes
- 15 g Cornstarch
- 3 g Xanthan Gum (about 1 teaspoon) Omit if your blend already contains it
- 3 tsp Mixed Spice Or pumpkin spice
- ½ tsp Baking Soda
- ¼ tsp Salt
- 215 g Pumpkin Mash/Puree (cooked) Or canned pumpkin puree
- 100 g Caster Sugar Or granulated sugar
- 50 g Light Brown Sugar
- 1 Egg Large
- ¼ cup Canola Oil Or vegetable oil, 56g
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
Cream Cheese Topping or Swirl
- 115 g Cream Cheese Slightly softened
- 10 g Caster Sugar Or granulated sugarf
- 10 g Egg yolk About ½ Large egg yolk. Omit if you want.
- 1 tsp Vanilla Extract
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 190°C (375°F) or 170°C (340°F) for a fan forced oven. Prepare your muffin or cupcake pan.
- Steam cook your pumpkin (if not using canned pumkin) and mash or puree then leave to cool.
- In a medium-sized bowl, sift your gluten free all purpose flour, cornstarch, spice and baking soda together then add salt and mix well.
- In a seperate bowl add your egg and sugars and mix with a whisk or mixer until light, thick and doubled in volume. Slowly drizzle in your oil while mixing slowly and mix until combined.
- Add your dry ingredients to the egg and sugar mixture and gently fold through until just combined.
- Add your canned or cooled pumpkin and fold through gently again.
- Add your cream cheese, sugar, vanilla and egg yolk to a small bowl and whisk together until smooth.
- Fill the cupcake cavity about ¾ full and split the cream cheese topping across the 12 muffins (about 1 Tablespoon each) and swirl through using the back of a teaspoon or toothpick.
- Bake for 20 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean or has only a few crumbs attached.
- Enjoy!
