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Starbucks pumpkin cream cheese muffins are easy to get close to and hard to get right, and the topping is the reason. Everyone tells you to scatter raw pumpkin seeds on top. Starbucks doesn’t do that. They use a caramelized praline.
The other thing that goes wrong is the filling sinking to the bottom. Mine has flour and milk in it, so it stays in the center where it belongs. Ten muffins for about what two cost at the counter. Want the loaf version instead? That’s my copycat Starbucks pumpkin bread.
Table of Contents
- Quick Look: Starbucks Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
- Why These Starbucks Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins Work
- Key Ingredients For This Copycat Recipe
- Substitutions And Additions
- How To Make Starbucks Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
- A Few More Tips
- Starbucks Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins FAQs
- More Pumpkin Recipe Favorites
- Starbucks Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins (Copycat Recipe)
Quick Look: Starbucks Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
- 🥧 What it is: A copycat of the Starbucks fall muffin, spiced pumpkin batter with a cream cheese pocket piped into the center and chopped pumpkin seed praline on top.
- ⭐ Why it works: The filling goes into the batter, not on it. Insert the piping tip about 1 cm into the center of each scooped muffin, squeeze gently, and pull straight up.
- 💛 Why you’ll love it: Starbucks only sells these in fall. This is the year-round version, and the pepita praline takes one small pan and about three minutes.
- ⚠️ What to watch for: Stop folding while a few flour streaks still show, overmixed batter bakes dense. Test with a toothpick near the edge, not the center, since the filling won’t read clean.
- ❄️ Make ahead: The cream cheese center means fridge, not counter, airtight up to 4 days. To freeze, wrap each muffin individually, up to 2 months, thaw overnight.
- 🎯 How close to the original: The caramelized pepita topping is what most copycats skip and what makes this read as the Starbucks version. Cinnamon sugar or candied nuts work, but land further from the original.
- ⏱️ Ready in: 30 minutes of work, but the praline needs 15–20 minutes to cool hard before you can chop it, start it first.
Why These Starbucks Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins Work
- The topping is a real praline. Butter, brown sugar, and pepitas cooked until the sugar caramelizes, cooled into a sheet, then chopped. Raw seeds just sit there and go soft.
- The filling has flour and milk in it. The flour absorbs moisture so the cream cheese doesn’t loosen and run down through the batter. The milk keeps it pipeable. Skip either and it sinks or weeps.
- Five spices, not just pumpkin pie spice. Cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, measured separately. Warmer and heavier than a pre-mixed blend, and much closer to the original.
- About half the sugar. 19g per muffin versus 34g at Starbucks.
- No mixer. Two bowls, a whisk, a spatula.
Key Ingredients For This Copycat Recipe
Full measurements are in the recipe card.
- Eggs. Room temperature so they don’t seize the oil.
- Cream cheese. Full fat, softened. Low fat has more water and will run.
- Flour and milk (for the filling). One tablespoon and two teaspoons. Small amounts, but this is what keeps the center from sinking.
- Canned pumpkin puree. Not pie filling, which comes pre-sweetened and pre-spiced. I use Libby’s.
- Cinnamon, ginger, cloves, nutmeg, allspice. My homemade pumpkin pie spice blend works here at 1 tablespoon total if you’d rather batch it.
- Canola oil. Oil instead of butter is why these stay soft in the fridge, which is where they live.
- Granulated and brown sugar. The brown sugar also caramelizes the pepitas.
- Pepitas. Raw and shelled, not roasted and salted. You’re going to cook them.
- Butter. One teaspoon, praline only.
Substitutions And Additions
- No pepitas? Chopped pecans or walnuts caramelize the same way. Deven in the comments does an oatmeal brown sugar crumble instead.
- Different oil. Leah used olive oil and said they came out just as moist. Any neutral oil works.
- Add chocolate. Fold in ¾ cup chocolate chips and you’re basically at my pumpkin chocolate chip muffins.
- Streusel instead. Use the topping from my pumpkin muffins with pumpkin streusel.
- More filling. You can double it, but pipe into the center only or the tops crack.
- Skip the filling. Then you’ve got a plain spiced pumpkin muffin, and the copycat Panera pumpkin muffins are built for that from the start.
How To Make Starbucks Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins
- Melt the butter in a small pan over medium heat. Add the pepitas and brown sugar and stir constantly for 2 to 3 minutes until the sugar melts and coats the seeds. Pour onto a lined baking sheet and leave it.
- It needs 15 minutes to harden. Doing this first means it cools while you mix and bake, which is why this is a 35 minute recipe and not a 50 minute one. Once hard, chop roughly.
- Whisk the softened cream cheese, sugar, milk, flour, and vanilla until completely smooth. Lumps now are lumps later. Transfer to a piping bag or a zip-top bag with the corner snipped.
- Sift the flour, baking soda, salt, and all five spices together and whisk. In a larger bowl, whisk both sugars, oil, pumpkin, vanilla, and eggs until smooth.
- Pour dry into wet and fold gently. A few flour streaks are fine. Overmixing makes them dense. The batter should hold its shape on a scoop.
- Scoop into lined cups about three quarters full. Push the piping tip about a centimeter into the center and squeeze while pulling straight up. You want a pocket, not a puddle.
- Sprinkle the praline around the filling, not on it. (Praline on top of the cream cheese melts in and you lose the crunch.)
- Bake at 350°F for 18 to 20 minutes until a toothpick near the edge comes out clean. Testing the center always reads wet.
A Few More Tips
- Pour a homemade pumpkin cream cold brew and you’ve rebuilt the whole order at home.
- Make the praline weeks ahead if you want. It keeps airtight at room temperature.
- Sticky praline means you pulled it off the heat too early. The sugar needs to caramelize, not just melt.
- These are better on day two. The spices bloom overnight.
Starbucks Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins FAQs
The Starbucks version has 350 calories, 14g fat, 53g carbs, 34g sugar, and 430mg sodium per 113g muffin. One of these has 256 calories, 14g fat, 31g carbs, 19g sugar, and 265mg sodium.
So about 95 fewer calories and close to half the sugar. Starbucks doesn’t publish café pricing and it varies by location, but the muffin generally runs around four dollars. A batch of ten of these costs six to eight dollars total, so roughly sixty to eighty cents each.
(Starbucks figures current as of the 2026 fall menu, which launched August 25. They reformulate occasionally, so check the app if you need exact numbers.) Worth knowing: this muffin is what Starbucks recommended to everyone asking where the pumpkin scone went. If that is what brought you here, I also make a copycat of the pumpkin scone Starbucks discontinued, and it is closer to the original than the muffin is.
None. Those are pepitas, which are shelled pumpkin seeds, not tree nuts. Starbucks coats them in a spiced sugar praline here, and leaves them plain and salted on the Pumpkin and Pepita Loaf.
Usually one of three things. The cream cheese was too soft and thinned out. You skipped the tablespoon of flour, which is the ingredient doing the stabilizing. Or you pushed the piping bag in too deep and deposited the filling near the bottom.
Go in about a centimeter and pull straight up. The filling should sit in the top third.
Airtight in the fridge, because of the cream cheese. Four days. Eat them cold, at room temperature, or warmed 10 to 15 seconds in the microwave, which is how I like them.
Yes. Cool completely, wrap each one in plastic wrap, then into an airtight container or freezer bag for up to 2 months. Thaw overnight in the fridge or microwave from frozen for about 30 seconds.
More Pumpkin Recipe Favorites
If you make these, leave a star rating and tell me how they went in the comments. It genuinely helps other people decide, and I read every one. You can also find every Starbucks copycat recipe on the blog here.
Starbucks Pumpkin Cream Cheese Muffins (Copycat Recipe)
Equipment
Ingredients
For the pumpkin muffin
- 1 & 1/2 cup all purpose flour
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1 & 1/2 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ginger
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 1/2 tsp nutmeg
- 1 pinch all spice
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar packed
- 1/2 cup canola oil
- 1 cup canned pumpkin
- 2 large eggs
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
Cream cheese fillling
- 6 oz cream cheese softened
- 3 tbsp Granulated sugar
- 2 tsp milk
- 1 tbsp flour
- 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Pumpkin seed topping
- 1 tsp butter
- 2 tbsp pumpkin seeds
- 1/2 tbsp brown sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350F and line a 12-cup muffin tin with cupcake liners.
Make the Pumpkin seed topping
- Melt butter in a small pan over medium heat (about 1 minute). Add the brown sugar and pumpkin seeds and cook, stirring constantly, for 2–3 minutes until the sugar is melted and coating the seeds.1 tsp butter, 2 tbsp pumpkin seeds, 1/2 tbsp brown sugar
- Transfer the mixture onto a lined baking sheet and let it cool completely (about 15–20 minutes) until it hardens into a crunchy, praline-like sheet. Once cooled, roughly chop into small pieces and set aside.
Make the cream cheese filling
- Mix the cream cheese, sugar, milk, flour, and vanilla extract until smooth. Transfer to a piping bag or a zip-top bag with the corner snipped and set aside.6 oz cream cheese , 3 tbsp Granulated sugar, 2 tsp milk, 1 tbsp flour, 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
Make the pumpkin muffins
- In a medium bowl, sift together all the dry spices (cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, allspice, ginger), baking soda, and salt with the flour. Whisk everything together until evenly combined.1 & 1/2 cup all purpose flour, 1 tsp baking soda, 1 & 1/2 tsp cinnamon, 1/2 tsp ground cloves, 1/2 tsp nutmeg, 1 pinch all spice, 1/4 tsp salt, 1/2 teaspoon ginger
- In a separate, larger bowl, combine the sugars, oil, the pumpkin puree, vanilla extract, and eggs and whisk until smooth.3/4 cup granulated sugar, 1/2 cup canola oil, 1 cup canned pumpkin, 2 large eggs, 1 tsp vanilla extract, 1/4 cup brown sugar
- Pour the dry ingredients into the wet mixture. Using a spatula or large spoon, fold everything together gently. The batter should be uniform, but it’s okay if there are a few streaks of flour, don’t overmix! Overmixing can make the muffins dense. The batter should be thick but scoopable , it should hold its shape when scooped into the muffin liners, not runny.
- Scoop the batter into the lined muffin cups, filling each about three-quarters full. Insert the tip of the cream cheese bag about 1 cm into the center of each muffin and squeeze gently while pulling up to create a small cream cheese pocket. Sprinkle the chopped pumpkin seed praline over the top, avoiding the cream cheese center.
- Bake for 18-20 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted near the edge comes out clean. Let muffins cool in the pan for a few minutes, then transfer to a wire rack.
Notes
Nutrition
Nutrition information is automatically calculated, so should only be used as an approximation.
I added brown sugar sprinkled on top instead of the seed topping and they came out great!
That sounds AMAZING!
Just made these and omg they are so good!!! I used olive oil instead of canola. I halved the cream cheese filling to make half the muffins without the filling and I can’t decide which I like better! They turned out so moist and perfect, Thanks!
Yay!! I’m so glad you loved them! 😍 Olive oil is such a great swap and I love that you tried both versions!
Love this recipe! I make a oatmeal brown sugar crumple topping instead of the pumpkin seeds
Love this recipe thank you
You’re very welcome 🙂
These muffins are easy & delicious. I doubled the batch. Don’t miss out on the yummy pumpkin seed topping, so, so good. Will definitely make again, and again. 😊
I absolutely LOVE this recipe! I made them for my friends and everyone loved them too! The cream cheese pairs so well with the pumpkin muffin! I will definitely be making these again!
Thank you so much for giving these a try!!
amazing recipe! i ran out of regular sugar so i subbed half with brown sugar & i also added sweetened dried cherries. overall a really great recipe & i will be making these again!
The cherries’ addition is genius! I have to try that out soon!
DELICIOUS!! I can’t get over how tender and moist this is! I will be making these again and again! Thank you for this recipe!
You’re so welcome!
Chahinez
Tasted EXACTLY like the Starbucks muffins! This was the best dupe ever and I will be making this again!
Thank you so much for trying it Ana! So happy to hear you enjoyed them 🙂
Chahinez