Carrot Cake Cheesecake Streusel-Topped Muffins

[PurplePuppy]

Cheesecake Carrot Cake Muffins With Streusel Topping



Cheesecake Carrot Cake Muffins With Streusel Topping

Streusel-
1/2 cup sugar
5 tablespoons flour
1 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 cup unsalted butter, cold
1/4 cup finely chopped toasted walnuts (optional; sometimes I use nuts in my streusels, sometimes not)

Cheesecake filling-
6 ounces cream cheese, room temp
1 egg yolk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup sugar

Muffin-
1 1/3 cups flour
2 teaspoons cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 cup finely chopped toasted walnuts (easily toasted by placing in a layer in a baking dish and toasting at 350 for about ten minutes; just until lightly browned)
2 eggs
2/3 cup honey
1/3 cup neutral oil, like vegetable
2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 cups grated carrots (It will take about 4 large carrots)
1 8 ounce can pineapple tidbits in juice, well drained (Use the lid to press down on the pineapple to get excess juice out so you don’t end up with soggy muffins)
1/2 cup raisins

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease or line with liners 12 muffin cups. You will have a bit of batter left, so use it for one jumbo muffin or another couple of regular sized ones.

Make your filling and streusel and set both aside- for the filling, beat together all the ingredients in a small bowl until creamy. Simple as that.

For the streusel, in a small bowl, whisk to combine the flour, sugar and cinnamon. Use a pastry blender to cut in the butter until you have chunks ranging from pea size up to nickel sized.

For the batter, in a large bowl, combine all the wet ingredients- the eggs, honey, oil, vanilla, carrots, pineapple and raisins. Stir well.
In another bowl, whisk to combine all the dry ingredients- the flour, spices, baking powder and baking soda and salt.
Dump the dry ingredients into the bowl of wet one and stir JUST until combined.

Fill each muffin cup with just enough batter to cover the bottom. Then top that with about a tablespoon of the cheesecake filling. Then, cover the filling with a healthy dollop of the muffin batter. You want to end up with filled, but not overflowing muffin cups.

Sprinkle streusel over the tops of each muffin, gently pressing down to get it to adhere better.

Bake at 375 until the muffins are golden brown and a wooden pick inserted through the side comes out clean (it’s fine if there is some cheesecake filling on the pick, just no loose muffin batter itself), about 20 to 24 minutes.

Picture at the link

Let cool in the pan for a minute or two, then gently pull them out (I use a spoon) and set them on a rack to finish cooling.