Sorry- I just can't post pictures of the pears because, as I discovered, I have not a smidgen of talent for food photography.

However, I will post a picture of the pumpkin cream cheese muffins I made. They were delicious. I ate 3 jumbo muffins and one regular-sized muffin yesterday (for the sake of the blog, of course, so it can live up to it's name).














I was thinking of making pumpkin muffins, then I remembered the delicious pumpkin cake roll with cream cheese that we had last year at thanksgiving, and I was inspired to make a cream cheese filling. I think I did the right thing.

I made one and a half batches of the following recipe, and it made 12 jumbo muffins plus 4 regular sized muffins.

Pumpkin Muffins with Cream Cheese Filling
Adapted from Letters, Gourmet,
November 2006 which was dapted from the American club, in Kohler, Wisconsin

1½ cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup canned
solid-pack pumpkin (from a 15-oz can)
1/3 cup vegetable oil
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pumpkin-pie spice
1¼ cups plus 1 tablespoon sugar
½
teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt1 teaspoon cinnamon

Filling:
beat together the following:
1 8-oz brick of cream cheese
1/3 C
sugar

Put oven in middle position and preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Put
liners in muffin cups. Whisk together flour and baking powder.Whisk together
pumpkin, oil, eggs, pumpkin-pie spice, 1¼ cups sugar, baking soda, and salt in a
large bowl until smooth, then whisk in flour mixture until just combined. Stir
together cinnamon and remaining 1 tablespoon sugar in another bowl.
Put a
spoonful of batter in each muffin cup. Add a spoonful of cream cheese mixture
and top that with batter until each cup is 2/3 full. Sprinkle tops with
cinnamon-sugar mixture. Bake until puffed and golden brown and wooden pick or
skewer inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes.
Cool in pan on a rack 5 minutes, then transfer muffins from pan to rack and
cool to warm or room temperature.