Pumpkin Spice Muffins With Streusel Topping

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Made with just 2 ingredients (including spice cake mix), my easy pumpkin spice muffins are ridiculously moist and bursting with pumpkin flavor. Add a crumbly streusel topping to take them to the next level.

Pumpkin spice muffins

I don’t know if pumpkin is a Southern thing. You always hear of pumpkin pie on Southern tables at Thanksgiving and such, but no one in my family has ever made a pumpkin pie to my knowledge. I had never tasted anything at all with pumpkin until about three years ago. While on a quilting retreat, we were served these delicious spice muffins and I just had to have the recipe. Imagine my surprise (and Mama’s) when we found out they were pumpkin!

No, these aren’t the ones we had on retreat. They are actually better except for one thing. Those on the retreat were baked for us, you have to bake these yourself. Everything tastes better when someone else cooks it for you! A neighbor of a friend gave me this recipe when I was telling her about the muffins. She was of the Northern persuasion and, thinking pumpkin was a Northern thing at the time, I asked her if she happened to know how to make pumpkin muffins.

Her face immediately lit up with glee at getting to pass this recipe on to one more person and now I share that glee in passing it on to you. To quote the person who first gave it to me…”If you want to make the BEST pumpkin spice muffins on earth…”

Oooh ooh! The best part… I added the streusel topping from Grandmama’s sweet potato casserole to them! They were good before but now – WOW! Tastes like something you’d get in a coffee shop. Go ahead, impress someone with your culinary skill today. Just make sure you hide the cake mix box at the very bottom of your trash can. Putting a few crumpled paper towels on top of it wouldn’t hurt, either.

Ready to make my 2-ingredient easy pumpkin muffin recipe with a crumbly streusel topping? Let’s go!

Ingredients for pumpkin spice muffins

Recipe Ingredients

  • Spice cake mix
  • Canned pumpkin puree
  • Butter/margarine
  • Plain flour
  • Brown sugar

How to Make Pumpkin Spice Muffins

Add cake mix and pumpkin to bowl.

Dump your can of pumpkin and your box of cake mix in a mixing bowl and add 1/2 cup of water.

That’s it. Seriously. Honest!

Ohmigosh! These are good. I made these a few weeks ago for this tutorial and I got up early this morning to make them for breakfast after working on this tutorial last night!

Mix ingredients together.

Oh, I was showing y’all how to make these, wasn’t I?

~sighs~ Y’all are slave drivers, you know that? ~winks~

Alright, mix the batter up until it looks like this.

Grease muffin tin.

Grease your muffin tin wells with either cooking spray or shortening.

I was out of cooking spray so I used shortening.

Add batter to greased muffin cups.

Measure out your muffin batter into the prepared muffin cups.

This doesn’t rise too much so you can fill them a bit fuller than you normally do.

Now let’s make our streusel or Yum Topping as my kidders call it. 

Add streusel topping ingredients to separate mixing bowl.

Streusel Topping

In a bowl, place your margarine or butter, brown sugar, and plain flour.

Yes, this is making a lot but don’t worry, I’ll show ya what to do with leftovers.

Cut ingredients together.

With a long-tined fork or pastry cutter, cut in your margarine.

Just keep pressing down with your fork like I am doing here until it looks like the next picture. You’ll need to stir a bit as you cut.

If your margarine is not room temp, this is going to be pretty difficult so plan ahead a bit for this.

Streusel topping.

There ya go! Your streusel topping is complete. 

Add streusel topping to pumpkin spice muffins.

I sprinkled my yum topping over half of them and patted it down a bit.  

Store leftover streusel topping in fridge or freezer.

If you have any topping left, just put it in a plastic bag and store it in your fridge to use as a topping on other muffins, coffee cakes, or the like in the next few weeks. If you don’t know when you are going to be able to use it, just stick it in the freezer. That’s what I did and this morning. I got it out and used it when I made these again.

Pumpkin spice muffins

Bake at 350 for 20-24 minutes

Remove from pan and dig in.

Don’t these look lovely? You can only imagine how wonderful they make your house smell!

Storage

  • Store pumpkin muffin leftovers in an airtight container either at room temperature or in the fridge for up to 5 days.
  • You can also freeze muffins for up to 3 months. Thaw at room temperature before serving. Feel free to warm them up in the oven or air fryer.

Recipe Notes

  • Want to add something extra? For pumpkin chocolate chip muffins, fold in up to 3/4 cup of chocolate chips. Other options include butterscotch chips, cinnamon chips, chopped nuts like pecans and walnuts, crystallized ginger, raisins, or chopped dried cranberries.
  • These pumpkin muffins are delicious as is, but I also recommend adding a spread of butter or nut butter.
  • You want to use canned pumpkin puree and not pumpkin pie filling, as that has extra sugar and sweetness we don’t need.
  • If you don’t want to add the streusel topping, you can serve them as is, sprinkle some oats on top, add a cinnamon sugar topping instead, or add a simple powdered sugar glaze.
  • You can use a box of yellow cake mix or chocolate cake mix instead. However, if you do this I’d add a teaspoon of pumpkin pie spice to the batter.

Check out these other pumpkin treats:

Pumpkin Praline Cake With Cream Cheese Icing

No-Bake Pumpkin Cheesecake

Pumpkin Spice Cinnamon Rolls

Mini Pumpkin Pies

Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes With Cream Cheese Frosting

Pumpkin Bars With Cream Cheese Frosting & Candied Pecans

Pumpkin Spice Muffins

Made with just 2 ingredients, my easy pumpkin spice muffins are bursting with pumpkin flavor. Add a crumbly streusel topping to take them to the next level.
Prep Time: 10 minutes
Cook Time: 24 minutes
Total Time: 34 minutes
Course: Dessert, Snack
Cuisine: American
Keyword: muffins
Servings: 12
Calories: 267kcal

Ingredients

Muffins

  • 1 box spice cake mix
  • 1 can pumpkin
  • 1/2 cup water

Streusel Topping

  • 1 cup brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup margarine or butter at room temp
  • 1 cup plain flour

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 350. Grease a 12-cup muffin tin.
  • In a mixing bowl, place all ingredients and mix until well blended. Scoop into prepared muffin pan.
    1 box spice cake mix, 1 can pumpkin, 1/2 cup water
  • For the topping, stir together flour and brown sugar, breaking up any lumps. Cut in butter or margarine. Spoon or sprinkle on top of muffins, patting down slightly.
    1 cup brown sugar, 1/2 cup margarine or butter at room temp, 1 cup plain flour
  • Bake at 350 for 20 to 24 minutes.

Nutrition

Calories: 267kcal
Tried this recipe?Mention @southernplate or tag #southernplate!

 

Today is a great day just waiting to happen!

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154 Comments

  1. Good golly Miss Molly!!! These sound super duper wonderfully delicious!!!! I’m going to have to have my granddaughter make some of these when she comes to visit tomorrow for a few days!! I only hope she eats a lot of them cuz I know I could and I shouldn’t!!! I’m diabetic – might be ok to eat one without that fabulous topping, tho!! This is the kind of thing that makes me want to sneak out into the kitchen in the middle of the night for “just one more little bite!” Yeah, right – it’s the whole muffin or nothin’!!!

  2. Is it the 29 oz can of pumpkin or the 15 oz can I made a batch with the 15 oz can but they can be hard to find after Thanksgiving. and
    its hard to tell in the photo what size can. My kids love these muffins. and to make it easy I use a ice cream scoop (you know the old ones with the wire to help pop them out) to measure the amount to go in the cup. and the scoop that I use for cookie dough works great with the mini muffin pans and lets face it kids love anything mini.

  3. You are the new “semi-homemade” gal. =)

    another real good recipe using spice cake mix to put a can of apple pie mix on the bottom of a baking dish, sprinkle the cake mix on that and pour melted of butter on top of that. bake that and YUM!! Top with vanilla ice cream.

    1. Wait a minute DRY cake mix and butter on the pie filling, that’s it????
      OMG, I LOVE this web site!!!

  4. Well…well….I see there are some changes around here…lol!
    This is the last post that has shown up in my google reader…I got a little concerned and finally clicked and found you had a new set up…Oh my…I had some catching up to do…darn Google reader anyhow!!

  5. Christy, what size is the can of pumpkin? It looks like an average 14.5oz can in the photo but I’ve got 29oz in my cupboard. Maybe I need to make a double batch and surprise the kids. 🙂

  6. I learned about the muffins like this in a weight watchers meeting.
    minis the toppins, it was 1 pt. for each muffin.
    yum yum! It fills you up too!

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