Vegan Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

These Vegan Pumpkin Muffins are as luxurious as it gets. Spiced muffin batter filled with a rich cream cheese filling, then baked until golden with a delightful streusel topping. Enjoy as an indulgent breakfast, sweet snack, or dessert!

Our Vegan Zucchini Muffins are some of our favorite muffins to bake during the summer when the garden is exploding with fresh squash. But during the fall season, it’s time to swap the summer squash for our favorite fall squash—pumpkin! 

To put it mildly, these Vegan Pumpkin Muffins are not your average muffin. They’re filled with a sweet and creamy cream cheese filling, then topped with a buttery soft streusel topping. If you love our Vegan Pumpkin Bread, Pumpkin Cheesecake Cookies, or Pumpkin Snickerdoodles these pumpkin spice muffins are a must-bake this pumpkin season.

And while you’re at it, check out a few of our other most popular vegan pumpkin recipes: Classic Vegan Pumpkin Pie, Pumpkin Cinnamon Rolls, and Vegan Pumpkin Sugar Cookies!

Ingredients You’ll Need 

• Vegan cream cheese: Since the cream cheese is baked in these muffins, we recommend using a store-bought, oil-free cream cheese so it’s texture doesn’t change. We use Kite Hill’s plain cream cheese.
• Pumpkin purée: These muffins are made with pure canned pumpkin purée. Be careful not to purchase pumpkin pie filling. Pumpkin purée only contains fresh pumpkin, whereas pumpkin pie filling contains additives and sugar.   
• Sugar: You’ll need brown sugar for the muffin batter and regular granulated sugar to sweeten the cream cheese filling. 
• Non-dairy milk: Use any plain, non-dairy milk of choice. Our Homemade Almond Milk is perfect! 
• Vegetable oil: Adds moisture and fat and helps to give these muffins a soft and tender crumb. We used vegetable oil, but melted refined coconut oil, canola oil, and a light olive oil or avocado oil will work well, too. 
• Apple cider vinegar: The acidic nature of apple cider vinegar reacts with the baking soda and baking powder to help these muffins rise and become nicely domed.
• Vanilla: Both vanilla extract and vanilla paste will work well. Use what you have! 
• Flour: We developed these muffins with all-purpose flour to make them as soft and fluffy as possible. 
• Leavening agents: You’ll need both baking soda and baking powder to help these muffins rise and become golden brown on top. 
• Spices: Cinnamon, ground ginger, allspice, and ground cloves spice these muffins to perfection. If needed, you can replace these individual spices with 1 tablespoon of a pre-made pumpkin pie spice mix instead. 

For the Streusel Topping

• Vegan butter: Provides the fat that helps to bind the dry ingredients together. Once baked, the butter melts and yields a crumbly, crispy sweet topping. 
• Flour: All-purpose flour binds the streusel topping together.  
• Brown sugar: Adds sweetness and contributes to the crunchy texture.
• Cinnamon: Adds warmth and complements the spices in the muffin batter.

Equipment Needed

• 1-2 Muffin tins
• Muffin liners
• 2 Medium bowl and 1 Large bowl
• Fork
• Whisk

How to Make Vegan Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins

1. Preheat and prep. Preheat the oven to 425F and prepare a muffin tin with liners. You can either bake in every other muffin mold or all 12. If you do every other, leaving half empty allows the muffins to rise higher. You can bake all 12 muffins simultaneously, but they won’t rise as much as the former option. But they will still be delicious!
2. Prepare the streusel topping. Add the melted vegan butter, flour, brown sugar, and cinnamon to a medium bowl. Mix with a fork until crumbs form. Set aside. 
3. Prepare the cream cheese filling. In a small bowl, add the softened vegan cream cheese and sugar. Mix until completely smooth. Set aside. 
4. Combine the wet muffin ingredients. Add the pumpkin purée, brown sugar, non-dairy milk, vegetable oil, apple cider vinegar, and vanilla to a medium-sized mixing bowl. Whisk together until combined and set aside. 
5. Combine the dry muffin ingredients. Add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, and cloves to a large bowl. Whisk together until well combined.
6. Whisk wet and dry ingredients together. Pour the wet ingredients into the bowl with the dry ingredients. Whisk until just combined – be careful not to overmix. 
7. Fill the muffin tin. Add 2 tablespoons of batter to each muffin liner. Top with 1 heaping tablespoon of the cream cheese filling, then top with more batter to fill each liner to the top. 
8. Sprinkle with streusel topping. Top each muffin with the streusel topping and lightly press it into the batter to help it stick. 
9. Bake until golden brown. Transfer the muffins to the oven and bake for 7 minutes at 425F. Lower the temperature to 350F without opening the oven and continue baking for another 13-16 minutes. 
10. Repeat with the remaining batter. If you baked your muffins in every other tin, remove the baked muffins from the oven and let them cool for 10 minutes before removing them from the tin. Bake the remaining muffins using the same method until all batter is used. Enjoy! 

Storage Instructions

These pumpkin muffins are best enjoyed while fresh, but leftovers will keep in an airtight container at room temperature for 24-48 hours. If you need to store them for longer than this, transfer to the refrigerator to store for up to 5 days.

​Note that once refrigerated, these muffins will become significantly more dense and moist. We prefer them at room temperature. 

More Vegan Pumpkin Recipes You May Enjoy:

Dessert

Pumpkin Snickerdoodles

Dessert

Vegan Pumpkin Pie Pudding (7-Ingredients)

Dessert

Pumpkin Cream Horns

Bread

Vegan Pumpkin Bread

Make sure you tag us on Instagram @sweetsimplevegan and @consciouschris and hashtag #sweetsimplevegan if you make this recipe. We love to see your photos! 

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