Carrot & Cream Cheese Muffins

Don’t you just love lazy Sundays? It’s a lazy Sunday for me and the first thing that comes to mind is starting the day with something tasty. Last week I made streusel topped blueberry muffins and wrapped each individually to store in the freezer for the week. This was such a great breakfast to have ready and it was easy to just grab and go in the mornings. I think I’m going to continue making muffins on the weekend so that there’s always breakfast handy in addition to the fresh fruit we grab as we shuffle off to work.

For this week, I came across the following recipe from a fellow blogger. It’s kind of a cross between a cake and muffin but however you look at it, it’s definitely delicious. I baked these as jumbo muffins (which are baked in a pan of 6) and they reminded me of large bakery muffins. I think muffins are always better with a bit of streusel so I added this to the original recipe. Just like the blueberry muffins, these can be individually wrapped in plastic wrap and placed in a freezer bag. Freeze them and as you get ready for the day in the morning, just take one out of the freezer to come to room temperature and they’ll be good to enjoy with your morning coffee or tea!

Carrot & Cream Cheese Muffins
recipe adapted from The Delicious Life

Carrot Muffins:
1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1 1/2 cup shredded carrots (about 8oz of baby carrots)
1/2 cup chopped walnuts
1/2 cup raisins, soaked in hot water or rum for 10 minutes (I omitted)

Cream Cheese Filling:
4 oz. cream cheese, softened
1 egg yolk
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 teaspoon vanilla

Streusel Topping:
1 1/2 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons dark brown sugar
pinch table salt
1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
2 1/2 tablespoons warm, melted unsalted butter

Preheat oven to 350. Prepare your muffin tins by greasing with cooking spray or using paper liners.

Sift together the flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg and sugar; set aside.

In separate bowl, beat the eggs and oil together until lightened. Stir in the carrots, walnuts and raisins.

In another bowl, cream together the cream cheese filling ingredients; set aside.

Fold the dry muffin ingredients into the wet egg/oil mixture and stir until just combined.

Fill each muffin cup about ¾ full. Top each filled muffin cup with a generous teaspoon of the cream cheese filling.

Combine all the dry streusel ingredients in small bowl. Drizzle with the warm, melted unsalted butter and toss with fork until evenly moistened and mixture forms large chunks with some pea-sized pieces throughout. Before baking, top the filled muffin cups with the streusel topping.

Bake about 20-25 minutes*, or until a toothpick inserted into the cake part comes out clean.

*If making standard sized muffins, bake for 17-20 minutes.
*If making jumbo sized muffins, bake for 23-25 minutes.