These super soft pumpkin crumb cake muffins are topped with pumpkin spice crumbs and finished with sweet maple icing. They’re a reader favorite and after baking one batch, you’ll understand why!
Let’s all just agree that the crumbs are the best part of crumb cake.
…or so I thought until I made these pumpkin crumb cake muffins. Underneath pumpkin spice crumbs (!!) there’s an irresistible pumpkin cake—and I, for one, cannot resist anything pumpkin. (Especially you, pumpkin pie!) Both the muffin itself AND the crumbs are equally awesome. Top the pumpkin muffins with a little maple icing and there’s basically no need for any other breakfast food. (Unless you make a pumpkin coffee cake!!)
Like clockwork, September rolls around and we all go crazy for these pumpkin crumb cake muffins. They’re the perfect combination of everything we love about fall. Their ease and taste also help us transition into the chillier months.
Here’s why these are the best pumpkin muffins:
Instead of using my iced pumpkin coffee cake recipe as the base, I turned to my pumpkin bread. I LOVE using that bread recipe to make pumpkin chocolate chip muffins. All you do here is take out the chocolate chips, reduce the sugar, and use milk instead of orange juice. Though you could definitely use orange juice if you’d like! (Orange juice provides incredible flavor to the bread, trust me on that one.)
Made with basic ingredients, these pumpkin muffins come together quickly.
If you thought crumb topping couldn’t get any better, think again. We’re topping pumpkin crumb cake muffins with pumpkin spice crumbs. YES!
We use oil in the muffins themselves for extra moistness, but we use melted butter in the crumb topping. Why? F-L-A-V-O-R. The crumb topping also has brown sugar, granulated sugar, flour, and pumpkin pie spice. (Like my traditional crumb cake topping but with pumpkin pie spice instead of cinnamon.) There are repeat ingredients used in the muffins, so this is not only an easy recipe, it’s a convenient one too. By the way, this crumb topping would be fantastic on zucchini muffins and these chocolate pumpkin muffins, too.
I reduced the sugar in these muffins because they’re getting an extra dose of sweet from the crumb topping and maple icing. With that, I also reduced the salt to make sure the muffins didn’t taste salty with less sugar.
Maple icing is optional, but I don’t think we should ever label icing as an option! Honestly though, they taste great even without it. Also honestly, the maple icing seeping into the crumb topping is better than you can imagine. You could try it on these mini cinnamon sugar pumpkin muffins, too.
Be sure to enjoy these muffins with a cup of coffee and homemade pumpkin coffee creamer for the ultimate fall breakfast!
Soft and moist pumpkin crumb cake muffins with pumpkin pie spice and maple icing topping.
