These Raspberry Cheesecake Muffins Are Breakfast-Worthy

The best way to enjoy a little taste of dessert for breakfast is with a muffin. Basically the cupcakes of the morning, muffins are fluffy, crumbly pastries that often feature a crunchy nut or streusel topping. Versatile enough to be made with fruit, chocolate, nuts, or even vanilla icing, muffins are a fun option for busy mornings and a great pairing for slow weekend brunches; and while store-bought mixes make it easy to whip up muffins in a pinch, nothing is better than a muffin made from scratch.

This raspberry cheesecake muffin recipe written with developer Michelle McGlinn is sweet, tart, rich, and creamy in the center. The colorful fresh raspberries buried within the fluffy muffin base offer a burst of sweet flavor, while the whipped cheesecake filling provides a rich, dessert-like finish. Topped with crumbly streusel, these muffins are the perfect way to treat yourself first thing in the morning, or as a snack later in the afternoon.

The base of these muffins is made with ingredients you likely have on hand, especially if you frequently bake. You'll need flour, granulated sugar, baking powder, salt, milk, vegetable (or canola) oil, vanilla extract, and an egg. From there, you'll just need fresh raspberries and softened cream cheese, and a little bit of brown sugar and butter to make a crumbly streusel topping.

Preheat the oven to 400 F and line a muffin tin with paper liners.

In a large bowl, combine the flour, ½ cup sugar, baking powder, and salt.

In another bowl, whisk the milk, oil, egg, and vanilla together until smooth.

Fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined. Do not overmix.

Add the raspberries and stir gently to combine.

In another bowl, use an electric beater to combine the softened cream cheese and remaining ¼ cup granulated sugar until fluffy, about 3 minutes.

Fill muffin cups with 1 tablespoon muffin batter.

Dollop each muffin cup with 1 tablespoon of the cream cheese mixture.

Fill the muffin cups with the remaining muffin batter until nearly full.

Make the streusel: In a small bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar, and cold butter together with a pastry cutter or fork until crumbly.

Sprinkle the streusel topping over each muffin.

Bake the muffins for 20-25 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the middle of a muffin comes out clean.

Transfer the muffins to a wire rack to cool slightly before serving.

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The are many muffin making mistakes that can cause them to become dry, crumbly, or even dense. The first and most common reason that muffins become dry is due to over mixing, which happens when the wet ingredients are folded into the flour mixture. To avoid over mixing, use wide, sweeping strokes with your spatula, scraping the bottom of the bowl to incorporate any flour at the bottom of the batter. As soon as any visible flour is incorporated, stop mixing — it's okay if there's still a few lumps.

The second reason your muffins may be dry could be due to over baking. This can happen even if you pull the muffins out of the oven at exactly the right time; if you leave the muffins in the tray while they cool, they continue to bake in residual heat, leading to over baked muffins. To avoid this, it is important to remove the muffins from the muffin tin and allow them to cool on a wire rack. It's especially important with a cream cheese center, which can dry out just as much as the muffin itself.

What really separates a muffin from a cupcake is the topping. Muffins often have a streusel topping, which is more crumbly, savory, and sometimes more nutty than the sweet, whipped frosting topping that usually completes a cupcake. Without it, the muffin will essentially resemble a cupcake without frosting. The topping helps add a browned, crispy-looking top to the muffin, giving it a more appealing (or finished) look.

You can skip the streusel topping, but your muffins won't have the browned, crumbly appearance of a bakery-style muffin. As an alternative, you can use some of the cream cheese filling as a frosting, adding just a dollop to the center of the muffin top as a way to complete the muffin. You can also simply leave the muffin plain to show more of the colorful raspberries in the batter.

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