Pumpkin Cheese Muffins

Wholesome and moist muffins made with pureed pumpkin and cottage cheese.

1 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup rolled oats
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp salt
3 tbsp brown sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tbsp flax
1 cup unsweetened pumpkin puree
1 cup pureed light cottage cheese
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/4 cup maple syrup
2 eggs
2 tbsp vegetable oil
1/3 cup chocolate chips, or dried cranberries, or raisins (optional)

Preheat oven to 400F. In a medium bowl, combine flour, oats, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt, sugar, baking powder and flax. In another bowl mix together pumpkin, cheese, maple syrup, egg and oil. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir until just combined. Fold in chocolate chips if using. Scoop batter into greased mini-muffin cups and bake for 12-15 minutes.

I was originally going to make Marla’s Cranberry Pumpkin Ricotta Cookies from Family Fresh Cooking, but I made a little tweak here and a little substitution there and somehow they ended up as these muffins. Luckily they turned out to be a delicious creation. Tony took a bite and said ‘wow, these muffins are really good!’ and then grabbed a bunch of them to take to work. The boys didn’t love them quite as much, but they don’t seem to like muffins of any kind. I don’t really understand it; I mean, who doesn’t like muffins? Well apparently my boys don’t. That’s fine though because Tony and I didn’t really want to share anyway. I really love the combination of cheese and pumpkin in these muffins. I didn’t have ricotta cheese so I pureed cottage cheese with an immersion blender and it worked great. You could also use a regular blender if you don’t happen to have an immersion blender handy.

Update: A friend has tried these muffins using applesauce instead of pumpkin, and ricotta instead of pureed cottage cheese. They were apparently a big hit with the kids!

9 Comments Add yours

  1. Riann's avatar Riann says:

    Mine did not turn out… I even cooked them longer than you stated. 😦 They totally fell and were super gummey. They tased good however. Maybe they needed baking soda as well or more baking powder?

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  2. Megan's avatar Megan says:

    Oh no that’s too bad! Did you make mini-muffins or regular ones? I found the mini size worked better for this recipe.

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  3. Megan's avatar Megan says:

    I made these again and have updated the recipe with some improvements (extra egg, baking soda). Also my oven is a bit hot and I must not have adjusted the temp for that so it should be more like 400 not 375 as I originally wrote.

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  4. amberm145's avatar amberm145 says:

    This didn’t turn out for me either. I did regular size, but the batter was lumpy, and cooking it just solidified it and they tasted bad. I added about 1/4 cup of apple sauce to the second half of the batter, and it was a huge improvement. But they weren’t fabulous.

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  5. Megan's avatar Megan says:

    Oh how disappointing, I’m sorry!I’m very stumped, they worked for me pretty well. I did them as mini-muffins though. I think I should take out the option of regular muffins as people seem to have poor results with the larger size.

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  6. Wanda's avatar Wanda says:

    Thanks so much for the recipe, Megan. I was looking for a way to use up a lot of cottage cheese, and these are delicious! I love how healthy they are and everyone in the family, including my kids (6 and under), can’t get enough of them – one batch is gone in less than 2 days. 🙂

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    1. Megan Newton's avatar Megan Newton says:

      That’s wonderful! I’m glad they were a hit =)

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  7. Carolyn's avatar Carolyn says:

    I really loved these muffins! Made them full size, and they turned out great!

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    1. Megan @ Food & Whine's avatar Megan says:

      Oh that’s great! I’m so happy they turned out well.

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