Place the cream cheese, egg yolk, sugar, and vanilla extract in a mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer for 1-2 minutes, until smooth. Place the bowl in the freezer while you prep the rest of the recipe. Chilling the filling will help keep it from melting into the muffins.

In a mixing bowl combine the flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, and ginger. Stir together and set aside.

In a larger mixing bowl combine the pumpkin, eggs, vegetable oil, and milk. Stir to combine.

Gradually mix the dry ingredients into the wet ingredients, mixing just until combined. The batter will be very thick.

Cover the bowl with a towel and allow the batter to rest for 15 minutes. During this time, preheat the oven to 425ºF / 220ºC.

For bakery style muffins, line a 12 count muffin pan with 6 muffin liners, meaning you’ll only fill every other muffin well with batter. For the photos, I used tulip muffin liners, you can find them on amazon. Tulip liners naturally produce a taller muffin so you don’t need to do the every other muffin method. If you’re using regular muffin liners, I recommend filling every other muffin well.

Fill the liners with 2 tablespoons of batter. Drop 1 tbsp of the cream cheese mixture into each muffin cup. Use a toothpick to swirl into the batter. Then add 6 tablespoons of batter, covering the cream cheese. Top each muffin with ½ tbsp of cream cheese, swirling with a toothpick. Sprinkle the tops with sanding sugar.

While one pan is baking, refrigerate the remaining batter in the bowl. Place one pan in the center of the oven and bake for 7 minutes at 425ºF / 220ºC, then keep the muffins in the oven, turn the temperature down to 350ºF / 180ºC and bake for 18-21 minutes if using regular muffin liners / bake for 20-25 minutes if using tulip muffin liners or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow the muffins to cool in the pan. Repeat with the remaining batter, bumping the temperature back up to 425ºF / 220ºC.