I went to Costco on Sunday.
No surprise there as I LOVE Costco and they practically built one in my backyard!! Its the best place in the world. Well, that and Ikea! ❤
While meandering through the fruit aisles, I came across one of the last boxes of raspberries that had been on the pallet. They still looked fresh and had great coloring – win for me!
Figuring I hadn’t baked in a while, I decided to re-work my Blueberry Muffin recipe that I had posted a few months ago. But this muffin needed to be elevated, above and beyond. And that is when I tossed in chunks of thick, creamy, cream cheese. YUM! 🙂
Streusel Topping
*1 1/2 tablespoons RAW sugar
*1 1/2 tablespoons brown sugar
*1/2 teaspoon salt
*1/4 cup flour
*2 1/2 tablespoons butter, melted
Raspberry Sauce
*1 1/2 cups fresh raspberries
*1 tablespoon sugar
Muffin Mixture
*2 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
*2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
*1 teaspoon salt
*3 large eggs
*1 1/8 cup sugar
*4 tablespoons butter, melted
*1/4 cup vegetable oil
*3/4 cup plain yogurt, I used plain greek yogurt
*1/4 cup milk
*1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
*8 oz cream cheese, room temperature and cut into little pieces
*1 cup fresh raspberries
***This recipe yields 24 muffins***
Streusel Topping Instructions
In a small bowl, mix together the RAW sugar, brown sugar, salt, and flour. Once thoroughly combined, add the melted butter and stir until the mixture is moist and crumbly. Set this bowl aside until later.
Raspberry Sauce Instructions
In a small saucepan, reduce 1 1/2 cups of fresh raspberries and 1 tablespoon of sugar over medium heat for 10 – 15 minutes.
While reducing, mash the raspberries with a spoon and stir the sauce constantly to prevent the sugar and raspberries from sticking to the saucepan. The raspberry sauce should become very thick once its reduced in the saucepan. Once thickened, remove the saucepan from heat and set aside until later.
Muffin Mixture
Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.
In a large mixing bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder, and salt until well blended. Set the bowl aside.
In a different bowl, medium in size, whisk together the 3 eggs and 1 1/8 cups of sugar until it reaches a thick consistency. Add in the melted butter and oil and whisk until well combined.
In the egg bowl, add in the yogurt, milk, and vanilla extract. Whisk well. The sauce should look pale yellow in color and be very creamy.
Pour the egg bowl into the flour bowl and gently fold the mixture together. Add the 8 oz of cream cheese (softened and cut into smaller bite-sized pieces) to the batter and continue to fold the muffin mixture. Once mixed, the batter should be somewhat lumpy.
Add 1 cup of fresh raspberries to the muffin mixture and fold in gently. Be careful to not burst the raspberries unless you’d like pink muffin mix.
Fill a muffin tin with baking cups or spray each muffin tin very thoroughly with cooking oil to prevent burning/mixture sticking to the tin. Scoop the muffin mixture into each muffin baking cup. The batter should completely fill the muffin cup.
Once the batter is in the muffin cups, spoon 1/2 – 1 teaspoon of Raspberry Sauce on top of each muffin top. Take a toothpick and swirl the Raspberry Sauce into the center of the muffin mixture. I forgot to take a photo of this step with the raspberries, but in the photo above is the same step using blueberries from my Blueberry Muffin Recipe. The 6 muffins on the left have the blueberry (or raspberry) sauce on top, and the 6 muffins on the right have the blueberry (or raspberry) sauce swirled into the muffin mixture.
After the sauce has been swirled in, sprinkle the Streusel Topping over each muffin.
Bake in the oven for 17 – 20 minutes. The topping should be golden brown and a toothpick, if inserted into the center muffin, should come out clean.
Let the muffins cool in the muffin tin for about 5-10 minutes before being transferred to a wire rack to finish cooling.
Baker’s Notes:
Muffins tend to have the stigma of being dry, crumbly, and not sweet. I decided that I wanted the exact opposite when creating these muffins. They were going to be moist and sweet, with some creamy goodness swirling around inside. I think I achieved what I was going for! 🙂
When I originally started to reduce the Raspberry Sauce, I only used 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar. I tasted the sauce while it was on the stove and realized it was still tart, so I added another 1 1/2 teaspoons of sugar, which gave me the sweetness I was going for. Since 3 teaspoons = 1 Tablespoon, I wrote the recipe as 1 tablespoon. If your raspberries are already sweet, I suggest starting with 1 teaspoon of sugar and working your way up to 3 teaspoons. You don’t want this to be overly sweet, but just sweet enough.
Normally, I bake muffins using 2 eggs but to achieve the moist, almost cake-like density I was going for, I added in the 3rd egg. I believe it made all of the difference.
Happy Baking!
Baker Kella 