APPLE CREAM CHEESE STREUSEL MUFFINS

APPLE CREAM CHEESE STREUSEL MUFFINS

#SIAintheKitchen

If there's something I never make, it's muffins. If you know anything about me, you'd know that I ran a long and successful cupcake business for a good seven years of my life. So naturally, cupcakes always won in my book. Muffins were always the ugly cousin of a cupcake or in the words of my 18-year old self, "muffins are like cupcakes but without a hat". And are denser. Way denser. And you put gross things like bran and whole wheat in them. WHY!?

So when I started recipe testing for this apple cream cheese streusel muffin recipe, I didn't even know where to start for a muffin recipe. Wasn't it just like a cupcake recipe with no icing? Nope. Cupcakes are like cakes - fluffier, softer, and lighter. Muffins, as mentioned earlier, are quite dense and I would say less spongey.

This recipe makes quite a thick batter and when I say thick, I really mean THICK - it is hardly liquid like my usual cake recipes. This helped when adding in the cream cheese filling as it didn't run all over the place and helped keep things in place. 

Loved this recipe... Dare, I say that I may have turned over the muffin side? This recipe is a surefire converter!

APPLE CREAM CHEESE STREUSEL MUFFINS - serves 12 (adapted from The Recipe Critic)

FOR THE MUFFIN:

• 1/2 cup butter, softened

• 1 cup granulated sugar

• 2 eggs, room temperature

• 1 tsp madagascar bourbon vanilla extract

• 2 cups all purpose flour

• 1 tsp baking soda

• 1 tsp baking power

• 1/2 tsp salt

• 1/4 cup almond milk

• 1 ambrosia apple, chopped and tossed in 2 dashes of ground cinnamon

FOR THE CREAM CHEESE FILLING:

• 4 oz. cream cheese, softened

• 1/4 cup granulated sugar

• 1 egg yolk

1. Beat all ingredients together until well-combined and set aside.

FOR THE STREUSEL TOPPING:

• 1/4 cup butter, melted

• 1/3 cup brown sugar

• 2/3 cup all purpose flour

• 1 1/2 tsps ground cinnamon

1. Mix the above ingredients together with a fork until crumbly.

1. Preheat your oven to 375F and place the rack in the middle. Grease a regular-sized muffin tin or use silicon baking cups. Set aside.

2. Cream the butter together and sugar together for 5 minutes on medium-high speed in your stand mixer.

3. Add the egg and the vanilla extract together. Scrape down the sides if necessary to ensure that everything is well-mixed.

4. Decrease the speed to low (2) and add the dry ingredients (flour, baking powder and soda, salt). Add the 1/4 of almond milk.

5. Add your apples in and ensure that everything is well-incorporated.

6. With an ice cream scoop, spoon the batter into the muffin tins until full. With a back of a small spoon, make an indent in the batter for the cream cheese filling.

7. Spoon a tablespoon or less of the cream cheese filling in the aforementioned indent.

8. Top the muffin with streusel topping and bake in the oven for 18-20 minutes.