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.
I don’t know if pumpkin is necessarily a Southern thing. You always hear of pumpkin pie on Southern tables at Thanksgiving and such, but no one else in my family has ever actually 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 when we found out they were pumpkin!
No, these aren’t the ones we had on retreat. They are actually better! 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…”
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!
What You’ll Need to Make Pumpkin Spice Muffins with Streusel Topping:
Ingredients:
- Spice cake mix
- Canned pumpkin puree
- Butter/margarine
- Plain flour
- Brown sugar
How to Make Pumpkin Spice Muffins:
Dump your can of pumpkin and your box of cake mix in a mixing bowl and add 1/2 cup of water. Mix it all together to make the batter!
That’s it. Seriously. Can it get any easier?!
Grease your muffin tin wells with either cooking spray or shortening.
Measure out your pumpkin spice muffin batter into the prepared muffin cups. These muffins don’t rise too much so you can fill them a bit fuller than you normally would!
Now let’s make our streusel topping!
In a bowl, place your margarine or butter, brown sugar, and plain flour. This recipe does make a lot, but I will tell you exactly what to do with the leftovers!
With a long-tined fork or pastry cutter, cut in your margarine.
Just keep pressing down with your fork to mix. 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.
And with that the topping is complete!
Sprinkle the streusel topping over the top of the unbaked muffins.
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!
Bake pumpkin spice muffins at 350 for 20-24 minutes until golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.
Remove them from the pan and let them cool.
Don’t these look lovely? You can only imagine how wonderful they make your house smell!
Storage
- Store pumpkin spice 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 , fold in up to 3/4 cup of . 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
Pumpkin Spice Cupcakes With Cream Cheese Frosting
Pumpkin Bars With Cream Cheese Frosting & Candied Pecans
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
We make chocolate ones using Devils Food cake mix. I’ll have to try the spice cake.
I make something similar here at home, ‘cept I add a dollop of cheese cake batter to the top instead of the ‘yum topping’, and add some pudding mix to the batter to make it extra moist. 🙂
My 10-year-old granddaughter makes these by herself. She can’t have eggs or soy so finding this recipe was a blessing.
NOTE: Margarine has soy, so we use butter in the topping. (Seems like everything has soy!)
Oh Christy, a friend from church told me about these (minus the topping and the water) and then I saw that you had them in your book. These are wonderful!!! I love these sooo much. You don’t even need the water, but sometimes I will add some. You can also use carrot cake mix. Love, Love, Love them and so easy!
Ahhhh! Did you hear my oven singing!? Oh my goodness how delicious are these!
I just posted a blog about making these delicious muffins!
Reagan,
Thought I would share one more goodie, with you. . . for the past several years I’ve been making a pumpkin bread roll which is “out of this world,” my family now longer wants pumpkin pies during Thanksgiving. . . they ask for the Pumpkin Roll, instead. I’m guessing these too, would be AWESOME with the cream cheese icing which I slather inside the pumpkin roll! If ya love pumpkin bread, muffins, cakes. . . well you get the point… the cream cheese REALLY accents this one POSITIVELY “perfect, too!”
I have been making these muffins for years and my family goes crazy over them. We usually have them in the Fall and Winter to help combat those cold Michigan mornings.
I’ve learned to cheat as Spice Cake is never on sale and I always have a box of yellow cake mix in the house. Use Yellow Cake mix instead and add 1 t cinnamon (we love cinnamon, so I use almost 2 t), 1/4 t ground cloves, 1/4 ground nutmeg and 1/4 t ground ginger.
I am planning on making these in the morning and adding the Yum topping – it sounds so good!!
Double thanks are in order for this one. Love the recipe Christy, thanks so much for sharing this one! And thanks to you as well Barbara Anne. The local grocery store actually did have spice cake mix on sale, so of course they were sold out! But thanks to you providing the measurements, I made these with the yellow cake mix and added the spice. Oh.my.stars. !!! These will definitely be a regular on our menu, lovely lovely muffins and so quick and easy 🙂
Enjoyed the beautiful muffins..So simple yet so good…Hubby says try nuts in the topping next time..I think I will make for Thanksgiving..always like a new simple recipe..Thanks