Ooze-Filled Pumpkin Cupcakes

Even though Trick-or-Treat is usually the highlight of our Halloween festivities, it falls on a night other than Halloween in our city, so the actual holiday is often times overlooked. I wanted things to be a little different today, so I took our "plain Jane" dinner menu, added some new titles to our dishes, created a cute menu to print out and a more interesting meal suddenly took the place of hot dogs and fries. The pumpkin cupckakes were my own favorite Pumpkin Chip Muffins (without the chips), filled with a cream cheese mixture and topped with chocolate chips before baking.

Cupcakes

Hands-On Time: 10 minutes
Ready In: 40 minutes (including cooling time)
Yield: 24 cupcakes

4 eggs
1 c white sugar
1 c brown sugar
l can pumpkin (15 oz., about 2 cups)
3/4 c vegetable oil like canola
3/4 c olive oil
1 t vanilla
3 c flour
2 t baking soda
2 t baking powder
l t ground cinnamon or pumpkin pie spice
l t salt
2 c semisweet chocolate chips

1. In a mixing bowl, beat eggs, sugar, pumpkin and oils until smooth.
2. Combine flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon and salt. Add to pumpkin mixture and mix well. Fold in chips.
3. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin cups three-fourths full.
4. Bake at 400 degrees F for 16 to 20 minutes or until muffins test done.
5. Cool in pan 10 minutes before removing to a wire rack.

Cream Cheese Mixture

Hands-On Time: 10 minutes
Ready In: 10 minutes
Yield: 24 servings

2 8 oz. pkgs cream cheese, softened
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 eggs

1. Beat all ingredients together until smooth.
2. Add a heaping tablespoon of cream cheese mixture to the top of each cupcake.

Note
Alternately you can put a 1/4 cup of batter into a cup, followed by cream cheese mixture and chocolate chips and then topped off with another 1/4 cup of batter.