Strawberry Cheesecake Muffins with Streusel Topping

Like so many years past, I had a wonderful Easter potluck with friends. I made a couple of things, but these muffins seemed to be the hit. I had the idea to make these a while back with pumpkin, but California strawberries are reaching their peak season and I have so many ideas of what to cook with them. The strawberries help keep the muffins light and the cheesecake and streusel add a touch of decadence. These are amazing right out of the oven, but keep well overnight.






Strawberry Cheesecake Muffins with Streusel Topping
(By Esi)

Makes 12 muffins

Cheesecake Layer:
8 ounces cream cheese, at room temperature
Scant 1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup light brown sugar
1 teaspoon grated lemon zest
1 teaspoon freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 tablespoon flour
1 large egg, at room temperature

In a medium mixing bowl, combine all of the ingredients. Using a handheld mixer, beat until smooth, about 2 minutes.

Streusel topping:
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup butter melted and cooled
Dash cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon grated lemon zest

Combine all of the ingredients in a medium bowl using a fork. Set aside.

Strawberry muffins:
1 stick butter, melted and cooled
1 pint strawberries, washed hulled, and pulsed in a small food processor until finely chopped (it is ok if some chunks remain)
1 1/2 teaspoons grated lemon zest
2 large eggs at room temperature
1 1/2 cup all-purpose flour
1 scant cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking power
1/2 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Lightly spray a muffin tin with cooking spray and set aside.

In a medium bowl whisk together the butter, strawberries, egg, and lemon zest. Meanwhile, in a large bowl, sift together the flour, sugar, and salt together in a large bowl.

Gently stir the strawberry mixture in to the flour mixture and mix until just combined.

Spoon 1/4 cup of the muffin mixture into each muffin tin. Spoon 1 tablespoon of the cheesecake mixture over the top of the muffin batter. Spoon 1 tablespoon of the remaining muffin batter over the cheesecake layer. Top each muffin with a few of the streusel crumbs.

Bakes 20-25 minutes until a toothpick or skewer inserted into the center muffin comes out clean. Allow the muffins to cool in the pan for 10 minutes. then turn the muffins out onto a cooling rack. Let the muffins cool for abut 10 minutes or until cool.


Printable Recipe

Double Chocolate Butterscotch Muffins

Hold on to your bar stools friends, there are some exciting things coming up for Dishing Up Delights. Nothing too major, but as I approach my two year anniversary of food blogging, I plan on implementing small changes that will hopefully make this site better than ever.



Now let's talk muffins. Make these immediately. Then take them to your coworkers so that you're not tempted to scarf them all down at midnight.




They will love you. I promise.




Double Chocolate Butterscotch Muffins
(From The Kitchn)



Makes 12 muffins

1/2 cup (1 stick) unsalted butter
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons cocoa powder
1 1/4 cups dark brown sugar
1 1/4 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 large eggs
1 cup milk
2 tablespoons vanilla extract
2 teaspoons white vinegar (can also use red or cider vinegar)
3/4 cup chocolate chips
3/4 cup butterscotch chips

Preheat oven to 425 degrees and line muffin cups with papers or parchment. Melt butter in a small saucepan over low heat and allow to sit and cool while you combine the other ingredients.

Mix all the dry ingredients in a mixing bowl. Stir with a wire whisk to combine, breaking up any extra-large clumps of brown sugar as you go.

Combine wet ingredients in a small bowl (including melted butter), adding vinegar last. Stir quickly to combine and add to dry mixture. Stir mixture with a wooden spoon until the wet and dry ingredients come together.

Add in the chocolate and butterscotch chips and stir to distribute. Using a large scoop, divide batter between the 12 muffin cups. Bake for 17-20 minutes until tops of muffins lose their shine and a toothpick comes out clean.

Printable Recipe

Blueberry Muffins with Cinnamon Streusel

Happy Saturday! It's been a busy weekend for me and it's only just the beginning. Please forgive me if it takes a little longer to reply to comments and questions over the next few days. I have my mom and sister in town and I am also preparing a shit ton of food for a little gathering. More on that later. Anyway, most of you know Dawn's blog, right? It's awesome and I can't wait for her to move back to Cali and open a bakery. (*wink*) Well I picked up a whole bunch of blueberries at the farmers market, snacked on some and then realized I have ever made a recipe with blueberries on this site before. I got many, many, many suggestions on what to make with blueberries on Twitter. So many that I was a little overwhelmed, but I settled on muffins. Of course since these are Dawn's muffins, they are kicked up with a crumb topping. The only changes I made were to add a little lemon zest and vanilla extract to the batter. These are phenomenal!! They are packed full of blueberries in every bite and the zest adds a little pop. They also smell totally amazing while baking with all that cinnamon and sugar on top. I manage to restrain myself and just have one before the vultures at work gobbled them down in seconds flat. These muffins may have to go on regular rotation while the blueberries are still good.



Blueberry Muffins with Cinnamon Streusel
(Slightly adapted from Vanilla Sugar)

Makes 7 muffins

Muffin batter:
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/3 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
Zest of 1 small lemon
1 cup fresh blueberries

Crumb topping:
1/2 cup white sugar
1/3 cup all-purpose flour
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Grease muffin cups or line with muffin liners.

In a large bowl whisk together the flour, sugar, salt and baking powder.

In a separate bowl mix vegetable oil, the egg and milk, vanilla extract, and lemon zest. Combine well. Incorporate the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients. Do not over mix, the batter will be thick and slightly lumpy. Fold in blueberries. Fill muffin cups to the top.

To make the crumb topping by mixing the sugar, flour, butter, and cinnamon. Mix with fork, and sprinkle over muffins before baking.

Bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until done.

Printable Recipe

Healthy Fruited Muffins

I feel like it was just yesterday that I posted a recipe found on Andrea's blog, but it was in fact three days ago and here I go doing it again. The thing that intrigued me about this recipe is that you could use frozen fruit and you didn't even need to thaw it. I have had a bag of frozen fruit in my freezer for longer than I should admit. I am sure I had good intentions of making smoothies or something, but those never materialized and the fruit sat in my freezer ignored. This is a snap to prepare and even though you stir frozen berries into the batter, they plump up while baking. It's always nice to change up your breakfast once in a while so why not do it with these muffins? They are moist and not too sweet and there is a lovely freshness from the lemon zest. My frozen fruit was a mix of blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries. I would definitely encourage you to experiment with different fruits.

Healthy Fruited Muffins
(Adapted from Canyon Ranch Cooking: Bringing the Spa Home as found on Cooking Books)

3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup agave nectar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 large egg, lightly beaten
2/3 cup milk (I used 1%, it is perfectly fine to use fat-free)
2 tablespoons melted butter
3/4 cup fruit, diced if needed
1/2 teaspoon grated lemon zest

Preheat the oven 350. Lightly grease a muffin tin and set aside.

Mix the flours, baking powder, and salt medium bowl.

In another bowl, whisk beaten egg with the milk and butter, agave nectar and lemon zest. Pour these wet ingredients over the dry, then add the fruit. Fold until just combined.

Fill your muffin cups 3/4 of the way full. Bake for 15-20 minutes until a toothpick inserted in the middle of the muffin comes out clean. Cool slightly in the pan before removing to a cooling rack.

Donut Muffin..Or Muffin Donut

Last week in the food blogosphere I saw a few recipes that were donuts as muffins or muffins as donuts. This week I am trying to cook with things that are already in my pantry or refrigerator so I couldn't resist trying them. These were to die for. I want to lie and say I only had one, but I had three. Soooo yummy and super easy to make (my personal favorite combination). Of course cinnamon is one of my most favorite ingredients (umm, what isn't my fave ingredient?!) and I love the way apartment smells when it is baking.

Donut Muffins
(From Laura Rebecca's Kitchen)

2 cups flour
1 tbsp baking powder
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp salt

2 large eggs
1 cup plain yogurt (I used nonfat Greek yogurt with excellent results)
2/3 cup packed brown sugar
4 to 8 tbsp oil
1 tsp vanilla

Topping:
1/2 stick butter, melted
1/4 cup sugar
½ tsp cinnamon

Position oven rack in the middle position and preheat oven to 400 degrees. Line a standard muffin pan with paper cups.

Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in a large bowl. In a separate bowl, whisk together eggs, yogurt, sugar, oil, and vanilla. Add flour mixture and mix with light strokes until the dry ingredients are just moistened. Don't overmix; batter should not be smooth.

Divide batter among the muffin cups and bake until a toothpick inserted in one or two of the muffins come out clean, 15-20 minutes.

While the muffins are baking, melt 1/2 stick butter and place in a bowl just large enough to hold a muffin. Combine 1/4 cup of sugar and 1 teaspoon cinnamon in a small, shallow bowl. As soon as the muffing are done, dip them one at a time in the melted butter and then roll in the sugar mixture. Set on a rack to cool.

PS, at the farmers market yesterday, one of the farmers convinced me to try a golden raspberry. I normally can have one raspberry and be done, but these were great. Sweet and slightly tart, but not too much of that "raspberrieness" that usually turns me off from raspberries. I did something fun with about half of them, but if anyone has any other suggestions about what to do with golden raspberries, I am all ears!

Strawberry Smash Muffins

A friend of mine picked up a bunch of strawberries from Oxnard earlier in the week. Of course I went one a strawberry recipe hunt, but then I remembered I had been wanting to try strawberry muffins for a while. In case you couldn't tell, I *kinda* like baking with strawberries. I was a little loathe to turn on my oven with the muggy weather we have been having lately, but it cooled down enough one night for me to make them. They came out really well and I was a little surprised at how light and fluffy they were. Of course, they made my apartment smell amazing!!

Strawberry Smash Muffins
(Adapted from CookingLight)

Makes 12 muffins

1 pint of strawberries, washed, hulled and chopped
1 stick butter melted and cooled
Zest from 1 lemon, about 2 tsp
2 large eggs
1 1/2 c all-purpose flour
1 c sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
cooking spray

For the topping (optional)
2 tsp sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. In a small bowl mix together the butter and egg. In a food processor or blender, pulse together strawberries and lemon zest until the strawberries are roughly smashed, it is ok to still have chunks of strawberry.

Whisk together the strawberries with the butter and egg mixture.

In a large bowl sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add the strawberry mixture to the dry ingredients until just combined.

Spray the muffin tins with cooking spray and and spoonfuls of batter into each tin, filling each about 3/4 of the way. If desired, sprinkle each muffin with a little bit of the cinnamon and sugar mixture.

Bake for 20-25 minutes until a fork inserted in the center of the muffin comes out clean. Turn out the muffins onto a wire rack and allow to cool before serving.

My Breakfast Is Better than Yours

Ok, that may be a slight exaggeration, but oh wow!! After cooking with my new favorite ingredient, I was looking for other cool ways to use this awesome grain. I saw this post the other day and thought, hmmm...how good could that be? I didn't want to believe the claim that the muffins came out moist, but man oh man am I glad I tried it. These muffins came out so well that I ended up having one for dinner too! I'm not such a huge fan of raisins so I made half of them with chocolate chips. I also added cinnamon because I have such a love affair with it and let me tell you, the smells of cinnamon and chocolate filling up my apartment were almost more than I could bare. These muffins come out moist with a slightly crunchy top and just the right amount of sweetness. As suggested, the plain ones can be eaten with strawberry (or your favorite berry) preserves. The chocolate chip are just fine on their own. This is one muffin where I won't just be eating the top. ;)

Quinoa Muffins
(adapted from Everyday Food)

Makes 12 muffins

1 c quinoa, rinsed (when cooked equals at least two cups)
1/4 c canola oil
2 c all-purpose flour plus more for dusting the pan
3/4 c packed dark brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1/4 c semi-sweet chocolate chips (optional)
3/4 c 2% milk
1 large egg
1 tsp pure vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

In a medium saucepan bring quinoa and 1 1/4 cups of water to a boil. Reduce to a simmer, cover and cook until water has been absorbed and quinoa is tender. About 10-12 minutes.

Meanwhile, spray a standard 12 cup muffin pan with non-stick spray and dust with flour, tapping out the excess.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, sugar, and two cups of quinoa. In a separate bowl whisk oil, milk, egg, and vanilla. Add the milk mixture to the flour mixture and stir until just combined. If desired, stir in chocolate chips.

Divide batter among prepared muffin cups and bake until a toothpick or fork stuck into the center muffin comes out clean, about 25 to 30 minutes. Cool muffins in pan for about 5 minutes and then transfer to a wire rack and cool completely. Store in an airtight container.