Anything goes this spring, even pumpkin

Try this muffin recipe from a Pillsbury box

I baked pumpkin muffins.

In spring.

Yup.

Isolation is eating away at my sanity. Or as Bruce Wayne, in that classic 1989 film “Batman,” more eloquently put it: “You want to get nuts? Come on! Let’s get nuts!”

I thought the Pillsbury Pumpkin Quick Bread & Muffin Mix in our cupboard was a fall leftover. The cheesecake muffin upgrade recipe on the box intrigued me, so I tagged it for a No Budget Cooking Series article as a way to clear out cupboard space.

Then a member of the Higgins Eats household used the box mix to make a loaf of bread before I could test the recipe. No worries. It proved barely an inconvenience to replace, as I added a new box to the weekly online order for pickup.

So, let’s get nuts.

Insights

This pumpkin mix isn’t going to convert pumpkin haters to lovers but is pumpkin-y enough for anyone already aboard the pumpkin love train. The cheesecake addition is underwhelming and not worth the extra effort and cleanup. The streusel topping, even without chopped pecans, provided a buttery sugar, slightly crunchy punch.

I used my stand mixer for the cream cheese mixture. That was overkill and less effective than if I had used the hand mixer as instructed. I wasn’t able to achieve a truly smooth mixture, and that may have been the reason it seemed more liquidy than I expected.

Do you need the lemon peel? Probably not. When making a plain cheesecake, I like the addition of lemon to help cut the richness. However, with pumpkin flavor and streusel topping, I don’t think the lemon is huge factor.

My indentation skills proved subpar and caused the cream cheese mixture to spread across the top of the muffin rather than form a cheesecake center. A bigger hunk of cheesecake would have likely amped up that part of the tasting experience.

Despite my mistakes, nobody complained about these muffins and they were gone within 24 hours.

Once again, a recipe on a food package proves to be a superhero when it comes to overcoming mistakes of the cooking-averse and novices.

PHOTOS BY DANIEL HIGGINS/USA TODAY NETWORK-WISCONSIN The streusel topping proved tastier than the cream cheese mixture on the Pumpkin Cheesecake Muffins made from a recipe on the Pillsbury Quick Bread mix box.

Pumpkin muffins in spring? That won’t make the top 10 craziest things happening in the world these days.