Cream Cheese-Filled Raspberry Muffins

Soft raspberry-swirled muffins stuffed with a cheesecake-like filling and topped with a generous sprinkling of coarse sugar! The perfect addition to your Mother’s Day brunch!

Can you believe it’s May already?! Not to mention, Mother’s Day is THIS Sunday, which means you only have 6 days left to plan/buy/make something super special for the woman who brought you into this world. The woman who fed you, played with you, read to you, drove you places, acted interested in your ridiculous ideas, taught you almost everything, and most importantly, had enough patience not to kill you over the many years of driving her insane at times. 

So she’s pretty much the most important woman in your entire life. No pressure, or anything.

Whether you’re 5 or 45, making breakfast for your mom/mum/mother/queen on Mother’s Day is definitely one of those gifts that’ll never get old. In fact, one of my mom’s favorite memories was when my brother and I would make breakfast for her on Mother’s Day. It was probably due to the fact that our breakfasts were a bit…unusual.

When the only allowable heating option you have as a child is a toaster, this is what you end up with…

Graham crackers, marshmallows, canned peaches, pickles, Cheez-its, and toast with peanut butter and jam. 

(P.S. I love how my brother has his hand out like, “Look at this glorious spread we have prepared for you.”)

Although this looks like a pretty balanced breakfast if you ask me, I have another idea that I think your mother will probably appreciate more…

Cream Cheese-Filled Raspberry Muffins!

Yes, FILLED muffins!

These little beauties of sweet raspberry goodness are each filled with a wonderful surprise of sweetened cream cheese filling, making them even more irresistible.

As opposed to most berry muffins, I decided to mash the raspberries and swirl them throughout the batter rather than just throwing them in whole. This made for a more even distribution of raspberry flavor. So if you’re not a huge fan of chunky muffins, then this muffin has your name written all over it.

The tartness of the raspberry swirl paired extremely well with the mellow sweetness of the muffin. It was important for the muffins not to be too sweet since they were going to be filled with sweetened cream cheese. Speaking of, the filling added just the right amount of sweetness and tartness. No need to slather on any butter or jam when you have that sweet, creamy filling baked right inside! 

I was SUPER DUPER pleased with how fluffy and moist these muffins came out. While muffins are synonymous with being made with a TON of oil, this one only had 1/4 of a cup. There’s also a 1/4 of a cup of butter, but still, a half cup of fat in all is pretty unheard of in a muffin recipe.  To make sure that these muffins would be extra moist, I added one of my favorite healthy baking ingredients–greek yogurt! I always have it on hand and it’s such a great substitute for fat in baked goods.

In order to bake these muffins up nice and tall, I added an entire TABLESPOON of baking powder to the batter. Another tip for getting sky-high muffin tops, is baking them at a higher temperature. I baked these at 425F degrees. The higher temperature allows the tops to bake up faster, preventing them from spreading if they were to bake at a lower temperature.

Like all fresh-from-the-oven sweets, these are best when eaten the day of. However, I’ve found that warming them up in the microwave for 10-15 seconds not only softens them back up, but also makes the cheesecake filling nice and creamy!

These fluffy clouds of raspberry cheesecake Heaven are sure to guarantee your spot as mother’s favorite.

Cream Cheese-Filled Raspberry Muffins

Soft raspberry-swirled muffins stuffed with a cheesecake-like filling and topped with a generous sprinkling of coarse sugar! The perfect addition to your Mother's Day brunch!

Print Recipe Pin Recipe

Prep Time 1 hour hr

Cook Time 17 minutes mins

Total Time 1 hour hr 17 minutes mins

Course Breakfast, Snack

Cuisine American

Servings 18 Muffins

Ingredients

  

Cream Cheese Filling

• 4 ounces cream cheese softened
• ⅓ cup granulated sugar

Muffins

• 1 cup raspberries (fresh or frozen)
• ⅔ cup milk
• 2 teaspoons lemon juice*
• 2 ½ cups all-purpous flour
• 1 Tablespoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon salt
• 2 eggs
• ¾ cup + 1 Tablespoon granulated sugar
• ¼ cup brown sugar
• ⅓ cup greek yogurt
• 1 teaspoon vanilla
• ¼ cup unsalted butter melted and cooled
• ¼ cup vegetable oil
• Coarse Sugar

Instructions

 

For the Filling

• In a small mixing bowl, use a fork to stir the cream cheese and sugar together until smooth. Refrigerate mixture until ready to use.

For the Muffins

• Preheat oven to 425ºF and line a standard 12-cup muffin tin with paper liners. Set aside.
• In a small saucepan over medium heat, bring the raspberries and 1 Tablespoon sugar to a simmer while using a fork to mash the berries. Continue stirring until the berries have broken down and the mixture has thickened slightly. Pour mixture through a fine mesh strainer set over a small bowl and cool to room temperature.
• In a small bowl, combine the milk and lemon juice. Set aside.
• In a large mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder and salt. In a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the eggs, brown sugar, and remaining 3/4 cup granulated sugar on medium until smooth and pale in color, about 2 minutes. Add the greek yogurt, vanilla, and lemon-milk mixture and continue beating until combined. With the mixer on low, slowly stream in the butter and vegetable oil.
• Pour wet mixture into flour mixture and use a rubber spatula to gently fold everything together until just combined. Try to avoid over-mixing which will produce tougher, dry muffins.
• Fill muffin cups 1/2 full with batter and top with about a teaspoon of the cooled raspberry mixture. Evenly distribute the remaining batter among the muffin cups and smooth the tops. Top muffins with another teaspoon of the raspberry mixture and use a toothpick to gently swirl the berry mixture throughout the batter.
• Spoon 1 to 2 teaspoons of the cream cheese filling on top of each muffin cup and use a knife or offset spatula to gently press mixture further into the batter. Muffin cups may look rather full at this point, but they WILL bake up fine! Sprinkle with coarse sugar.
• Bake for 15-17 minutes, or until muffin tops are lightly golden and springy to the touch. Allow muffins to cool in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Store leftover muffins covered in the refrigerator.

Notes

*If you don't have any lemon juice, vinegar can be substituted.
*Tip: If refrigerated, muffins can be reheated in the microwave for 10-15 seconds to revive their fluffiness.