King Arthur Flour Bake Along, Veganized: Inside-Out Pumpkin Muffins

Food is tradition. It is a shared experience with loved ones, new friends and our greater culture in general.

When you begin to eat vegan, all of a sudden favorite shared foods are called into question, “Does this have butter? Milk? Cheese?!” Loved ones may roll their eyes or simply be sad that they can no longer connect with you over favorite meals.

What’s a vegan to do?

VEGANIZE IT!

Instead of throwing out your food traditions, you can brush them off and give them a vegan update.

This is especially wonderful for baked goods. For many, baking together is a deep tradition that brings back joyful memories of being covered in flour while sweet smells fill the air from the oven. We bake from family recipes every holiday season, on yellowed recipe cards with food splatters from years past.

King Arthur Flour, a wonderful source of all things baking, provides a new recipe every month for their monthly #bakealong. September’s recipe is Inside-Out Pumpkin Muffins (fall must be right around the corner!). This creation is a pumpkin muffin stuffed with sweetened cream cheese and topped with a buttery streusel.

Totally vegan, right?

Not to worry, this sounds like a perfect time to VEGANIZE IT!

1. IDENTIFY WHAT IS NOT VEGAN

King Arthur’s recipe has the following ingredients:

• butter
• cream cheese
• eggs
• milk

That’s the superfecta of non-vegan ingredients right there.

2. MAKE SUBSTITUTIONS

The milk, cream cheese and butter subs are fairly simple 1:1 substitutions (given below). For the eggs, many would suggest using 1 Tbsp flax seeds and water/milk as an egg replacement. This would work great but simply using apple cider vinegar in this recipe will work as well. Add 1/2 tsp baking soda more to the batter to activate the vinegar’s binding capabilities.

• butter -> Earth Balance (margarine or any vegan butter)
• cream cheese -> Tofutti cream cheese
• 2 eggs -> 2 Tbsp Apple Cider Vinegar & 1/2 tsp Extra Baking Soda
• milk -> Almond Milk

3. BAKE AWAY

Preheat oven to 400° F.

Topping:

• 1/2 cup King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour or King Arthur Whole Wheat Flour
• 1/4 cup brown sugar (packed), light or dark
• 1/4 cup old-fashioned rolled oats or quick oats (not instant)
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 4 tablespoons butter 4 tablespoons organic Earth Balance, at firm room temperature

Mix all of the dry ingredients. Then add in the Earth Balance and use a fork to mix it into a crumble.

Filling

• 1 cup (8-ounce package) TOFUTTI cream cheese, at room temperature
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract or a few drops Fiori di Sicilia flavoring, optional

Use the back of a spoon to mix up the Tofutti cream cheese – this especially helps warm it up if it’s not really to room temperature yet. Add in the other ingredients and mix.

Batter

• 1 cup pumpkin purée (about half a standard 15-ounce can)
• 2 large eggs 2 Tbsp apple cider vinegar
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 1/4 cup boiled cider (for best flavor), dark corn syrup, or honey (choose another sweetener if you object to honey)
• 1 1/2 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice; or 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon + 1/4 teaspoon ground cloves + 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda + 1 tsp for apple cider vinegar
• 1/3 cup ALMOND milk
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup brown sugar
• 1 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour or King Arthur Whole Wheat Flour
  • Plenty Vegan used 3/4 cups unbleached all-purpose flour + 3/4 cups whole wheat flour

Mix the wet ingredients first, adding in the baking soda. This will help activate the apple cider vinegar.

Add in the remaining dry ingredients.

Assemble

Fill 12 cups with muffin paper and spray them with a bit of spray oil.

Scoop a bit of the batter, about 1 1/2 Tbsp into each cup, and spread it flat on the bottom. Then, top each with about 1 Tbsp of filling and cover with the rest of the batter.

This is tricky. Fill all cups with about 1 1/2 Tbsp of batter and see what you have leftover for batter. The muffins pictured here had the cream cheese filling more to the top of the muffin rather than the middle, because the base filling was more like 2 Tbsp of batter.

Also, try hard to keep the filling in the center of the tin – you can see some of that snuck out to the side here.

Don’t forget to distribute the crumb topping all over, making a mess!

Bake for 20 minutes at 400° F.

4. ENJOY THOSE MUFFINS!

As you can see, the streusel topping just goes everywhere, and that’s a-ok.

It’s official – baking season is here and we’re ready!

If you try this vegan version, tag your Instagram posts with #iveganizedit to share your creations!