Cream Cheese Cravings!

Last week I dreamed of giant, crumbly cream cheese muffins. I've never had them baked from scratch, just the pre-packaged variety from the local gas station. I grabbed one from the 7-11 baked goods case and it was closer, but just not the stuff dreams are made of. Here's the recipe I found online, I'll be using the vanilla flavoring and omitting the optional lemon.


Cream Cheese Muffins - makes 12 regular muffins (I'll most likely convert this to 6 jumbo muffins)

8 oz. Philly cream cheese - softened
1/4 cup soft butter
1 egg, beaten
1/2 cup milk
1 1/2 cups flour
1/2 sugar
3 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. vanilla - opt.
1/4 tsp. lemon flavor - opt.

Beat cream cheese and butter together; add egg and milk and mix well. Mixture does not have to be smooth.
If you want the flavorings, add them with the milk and egg.
Combine the dry ingredients and fold in just until moistened.
Batter will be stiff.
Fill greased or lined muffin tins about 3/4 full.
Bake at 400*F about 20-25 minutes or until golden on top.


While looking for said conversion from regular to jumbo muffins, I ran across this delicious recipe. I think I'll try this before I do the plain cream cheese muffins. Perhaps it's because my dad made carrot cake for his birthday last week and I didn't have any because he puts crushed pineapple in his. Yuck! (My mom usually spoils me and does 2 cakes, one with and one (the right way) without pineapple.)

Carrot & Cream Cheese Muffins

Carrot Muffins:
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cup shredded carrots (about 8oz of baby carrots)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts

Cream Cheese Filling:
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Preheat oven to 350. Prepare your muffin tins by greasing with cooking spray or using paper liners.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar; set aside.

In separate bowl, beat the eggs and oil together until lightened. Stir in the carrots, walnuts.

In another bowl, cream together the cream cheese filling ingredients; set aside.

Fold the dry muffin ingredients into the wet egg/oil mixture and stir until just combined.

Fill each muffin cup about ¾ full. Top each filled muffin cup with a generous teaspoon of the cream cheese filling.

Bake about 20-25 minutes*, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake part comes out clean.

*If making standard sized muffins, bake for 17-20 minutes.
*If making jumbo sized muffins, bake for 23-25 minutes.