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Blackberry and Cream Cheese Muffins

Blackberry Cream Cheese Muffins
Cream cheese is a great topping for muffins when served as a spread, but it isn’t often incorporated into the muffin batter itself. Cream cheese can actually make a great addition to muffin batter, adding moisture and a hint of cheesecake flavor to what would otherwise be a relatively plain muffin. I used it as part of the base for these Blackberry and Cream Cheese Muffins, which manage to remind me of cheesecake with berries every time I make them and makes me feel a bit like I’m serving dessert with breakfast.

These muffins are very moist and soft, with a lovely background flavor of cream cheese that really makes the fresh blackberries stand out. While you could actually substitute other berries into this recipe, I find that a perfectly ripe blackberry has a rich and jammy flavor that works particularly well with the cream cheese – not to mention the fact that the berries really pop with color against the paler backdrop of the muffin crumb! Try your berries before using them, as you will get the best results with the best berries.

I tend to make this recipe in the spring and summer, when I have plenty of fresh berries available to me. If you don’t have fresh berries, know that frozen berries will still work well in these muffins. If you decide to use frozen berries, do not defrost them and toss them in about 2 teaspoons of flour before folding them into the muffin batter so they don’t “bleed” any juice into the batter (this doesn’t affect the taste, but it makes for a nicer presentation).

Blackberry and Cream Cheese Muffin

Blackberry and Cream Cheese Muffins
2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
2-oz cream cheese, room temperature
1 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 cup milk
12-oz (approx 2 cups) fresh blackberries

Preheat oven to 375F. Line a muffin pan with 12 paper liners.
In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder and salt.
In a large bowl, beat together butter and cream cheese, then cream sugar into the mixture until light and fluffy. Beat in the egg and vanilla extract. Add half of the flour mixture, followed by the milk, then stir in the remaining flour mixture until no streaks of dry ingredients remain and everything is just combined. Fold in blackberries carefully with a spatula.The batter will be thick.
Divide batter evenly into muffin cups, piling it above the top of the pan (this will make for more dramatic muffin tops).
Bake for 17-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean and the top springs back when lightly pressed.
Turn muffins out onto a wire rack to cool before serving. Store in an airtight container.

Makes 12 muffins

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10 Comments
  • Lauren at Keep It Sweet
    April 22, 2011

    Blackberries are so wonderful in baked goods. These muffins look great!

  • olivia
    April 23, 2011

    lovely muffins… do leave one for me..

  • CK Bakery Shop
    April 25, 2011

    These cupcakes sound wonderful!! I can’t wait to make them!! Thanks for sharing!!

  • Ryan
    April 26, 2011

    yummy!! 🙂 I will make these asap. Cream cheese muffins are the best things ever

  • Kristin
    April 27, 2011

    These look great! Now I gotta keep an eye out for fresh blackberries!

  • Kelsey
    April 27, 2011

    I used to pick fresh blackberries as a kid in the summer up in NC at my great grandma’s place. Yum!

  • Anne
    July 30, 2011

    These look delicious and I just picked blackberries yesterday so I decided to make these this morning. My batter wasn’t really that thick. It seemed like a lot of batter for 12 muffins but I divided the batter to make 12 like the directions said. I sprinkled cinnamon-sugar on top of 6 of the muffins before baking. I was relieved that the muffins did not overflow while baking. The ones without cin-sug on top did not brown and do not look as nice. But what’s the most important? THEY TASTE GREAT!! Great taste & texture. Very moist and yummy – I ate my first one while it was still hot from the oven. Thank you for a great recipe!

  • Melissa
    September 5, 2011

    This recipe is fantastic! Thank you so much for posting it. I’ve made it twice, with blueberries, and my family LOVES them. This last time, I doubled the amount of cream cheese and they turned out amazing! Thank you!

  • glenda
    November 22, 2012

    I made these yesterday to go with Thanksgiving dinner. They are incredible, I think next time I will follow Melissa’s idea and double the cream cheese, I would have liked to taste more cream cheese. they are so great, congrats on these.

  • […] deciding “I have to make that right now!”.  These blackberry cream cheese muffins from Baking Bites caught my eye this morning.  I used frozen blackberries, since that is what I had on hand.  […]

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