Saturday 22 January 2011

dried cherry cheesecake muffins

Over the Christmas & new year break, I soaked up every opportunity to bake and it worked out perfectly well that family and friends would pop in every now and help me do some eating. I did my fair share of eating also and like it happens every year, January has been a month of being good, eating well, lots of salads and more than average visits to the gym. 

Out of all the things I baked over the Christmas, the one ingredient that featured prominently in all my baking was cherries. They weren't quite in season at the time (I find that you can get much plumper cherries in January) but I still had my packet of dried cherries sitting in my pantry calling out to be used (yes...food does seem to talk to me!)

Preheat oven to 180 degrees. Line a 12 cup muffin pan.

Chop up 100g dried cherries.

Melt 150g unsalted butter and cool slightly. In a large bowl, whisk 200g cream cheese and 150g caster sugar together, add 3 lightly beaten eggs one at a time until well combined Stir in the melted butter. Stir in 300g self-raising flour and add in the chopped cherries to the mixture. 

Spoon into the prepared muffin tin.

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until golden brown. Remove from the oven and cool on a wire rack.

I personally think that muffins taste best when warm so I tend to dig in when they come straight out of the oven.

Usually recipes with cream cheese can taste quite heavy and filling but this particular muffin is surprisingly light to the taste.  For me, I knew I put cream cheese into the recipe but for anyone else eating, you would hardly suspect it. So I guess if you're after your cream cheese fix and don't want to feel too guilty about it, I guess this it!

2 comments:

Rita (mademoiselle délicieuse) said...

I need to get into baking...as soon as the weather isn't so hot! And you've reminded me that I have a pack of dried cranberries from around Christmas which need using up as well.

mashi said...

I have a box of cherries at home too, baked a really healthy cherry tea cake on Sunday.

Yours looks delicious tho, am keen on trying out dried cherries mmm