Raspberry Ripple Cheesecake Muffins

I love the way recipes bounce from one blog to another each time with the blogger's adaptions made to it. As Nigella Lawson puts it, "All my recipes are refracted through the prism of my own tastes and prejudices." I picked up this recipe on Granny's blog and she had got it from Rosie's.

The first time I tried it I was a bit disappointed. I was contemplating making the muffins one Saturday when my mother-in-law sent up a box of reduced-price raspberries so it seemed just perfect to make them with raspberries instead of Strawberries. However, I wasn't that enamoured by the pocket of cheese or the baked fruit. That's when I started to toy with the idea of mixing the cream cheese and raspberry throughout the mix and replacing the raspberries with raspberry jam to facilitate this (I had recently made some soft-set raspberry jam which would be perfect).

I also have one important rule when making muffins - use yoghurt!

Success! For me, these adaptations made all the difference. Enjoy.

Raspberry Ripple Cheesecake Muffins

Ingredients:
350g (12oz) plain flour
1 1/2 tbsp baking powder
115g (4oz) castor sugar
1/2 tsp salt
2 eggs
250ml (9fl oz) natural yoghurt
75g (3oz) butter, melted

Filling:
175g (6oz) soft cheese
3tbsp caster sugar
6 tblsp soft-set raspberry jam

Method:

Preheat the oven to 200°C/fan oven 180°C/400°F/gas Mark 6.

Sift the flour and baking powder into a large bowl, add the sugar and salt and mix through with a wooden spoon or whisk then leave aside.

In another bowl beat the eggs and yoghurt together, and then stir in the melted butter. Make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the liquid ingredients, now gently mix until everything is incorporated - the mixture will still be lumpy and seem a bit dry. Do not over mix or the muffins will not be light and airy.

Beat (just quickly with a fork) the cream cheese and sugar for the filling together in a small bowl. Pour the cream cheese mixture and the raspberry jam into the bowl of muffin batter. Stir to blend - you want the cheese and raspberr ripple throughout the batter. Fill the muffin cases with the muffin mixture.

Bake in the preheated oven for 20-25 minutes until well risen and golden on top. Leave to cool for 5 minutes before turning out on a wire rack to finish cooling.

P.S. This recipe scales to 6 muffins perfectly.