Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins...

OK I got this recipe for "Almost like Starbucks Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins" off of a forum I frequent and I decided to tweak the recipe a bit and they are SO delicious!!!

I have never had the ones from Starbucks but these are really moist, flavorful and worth making again for me!

I made some with nuts for us and some without nuts for Diva.

Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

3 cups flour
2 tsp cinnamon
1 1/2 tsp nutmeg
1 tsp ground cloves
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp vanilla
one cardamom seed grated (I didn't have any ground up already)
1 tsp salt
1 tsp soda
4 eggs
2 cups sugar
2 cups cooked or canned pumpkin
1 ¼ cups vegetable oil
8 oz package cream cheese*
Chopped nuts** (pumpkin seeds,walnuts, pecans) (optional)

Preheat oven to 350. Mix ingredients together except cream cheese and nuts. Fill muffin tins (greased or paper cups) half full. Put 1-2 tsp cream cheese in the middle, pressing down. Sprinkle with 1 tsp chopped nuts. Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean from the muffin part (do not touch the cream cheese!). Let cool in pans for 5 minutes, then remove to racks to cool completely. Makes 24 muffins.

* For my cream cheese I took some wax paper and sprinkled it with cinnamon sugar and fresh grated nutmeg. Then I formed the cream cheese into a log and wrapped it up in the wax paper and put it in the freezer so I could cut it up into disks easier. The original recipe said that cheesecake cream cheese is good to use, so next time I might just make my cheesecake filling and use that.

**Starbucks uses chopped pumpkin seeds, which is very good if you can find them. I used pecans because I had them on hand.