Strawberries and Cream Muffins
Author: 
Recipe type: Breakfast
Serves: 12
 
Ingredients
  • FOR FILLING:
  • 4 oz cream cheese, room temperature
  • 1½ tablespoons of egg
  • ⅓ cup sugar
  • ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
  • FOR MUFFIN:
  • ½ cup butter (1 stick)
  • 1½ teaspoons vanilla extract
  • ⅛ teaspoon almond extract
  • 1 cup skim milk
  • 2 eggs, lightly beaten
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • ¾ cup white sugar
  • 2½ teaspoons baking powder
  • ½ teaspoon salt
  • 1 cup fresh strawberries, diced
  • Sanding sugar
Instructions
  1. Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees F. Line muffin tins with paper baking cups.
  2. Dice fresh strawberries.
  3. In a large bowl, whisk flour, white sugar, baking powder and salt.
  4. In a small pan, melt butter on low heat and add vanilla and almond extracts. Turn off heat and immediately add milk. In a separate bowl, lightly beat eggs with a fork. When the butter mixture is cool enough not to scramble the eggs, that's when you add the eggs and gently mix using a whisk.
  5. Pour the butter and egg mixture into the bowl of dry ingredients and gently mix using a spatula. I didn't use my KitchenAid mixer for this because the original recipe mentioned that over-mixing would create dense, flat muffins.
  6. For the filling: In a separate bowl, mix room temperature cream cheese, sugar and vanilla extract with a spoon. Beat one egg and gently spoon the egg into your measuring spoon. It's difficult to scoop the egg out using just the measuring tablespoon. Your egg will likely run away. Mix until the ingredients are incorporated. There will be some cream cheese lumps which adds texture to the muffins, but if you prefer lump-free cream cheese, I recommend using a mixer.
  7. Pour muffin mixture into paper baking cups, about ⅓ full. Sprinkle with diced strawberries and scoop a generous spoonful of the cream cheese mixture over the strawberries.
  8. Next, pour additional muffin mix over the cream cheese mixture up to the rim of the baking cups. Then sprinkle additional diced strawberries and finally, generously sprinkle sanding sugar.
  9. Bake at 400 F for 15 - 20 minutes until muffin tops are golden. I inserted a toothpick to make sure the muffin was well-done. You'll find some cream cheese and strawberry moisture on the toothpick as expected but as long as the muffin mix is crumbly it should be done.
Notes
Recipe courtesy of Cooking for My Peace of Mind.
Recipe by Bebe Love Okazu at https://bebeloveokazu.com/2010/05/21/strawberries-and-cream-muffins/