Blueberry Cream Cheese Muffins

Servings 12 muffins

Ingredients

2 cups all purpose flour
3/4 cup sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
a pinch each of ground cardamom cinnamon and nutmeg
1/2 cup unsalted butter 1 stick, melted
1/2 cup evaporated milk room temperature (not sweetened condensed)
2 large eggs room temperature
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 cups fresh blueberries
about 2 ounces of block cream cheese cold
raw sugar for sprinkling

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. Line a 12 cup muffin tin with paper liners. Set aside.
Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, salt and spices in a large bowl.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the melted butter, eggs, milk and vanilla until well combined.
Pour the egg mixture into the flour mixture and using a rubber spatula, fold and stir until most of the flour has been combined and there is no flour on the bottom of the bowl. You don't want to over mix or you will risk having tough muffins. At the point when you still have some streaks of flour to combine, add your blueberries and fold them gently into the mixture until evenly distributed. Folding the fruit in should finish mixing your batter. There should be no streaks of flour left in your batter.
If using a 1/4 cup muffin scoop, use about half a scoop or 2 Tablespoons to deposit some batter into each cup.
Cut twelve small blocks of cream cheese, about 3/4" square. It doesn't have to be perfectly measured. Just cut some small chunks and press one chunk gently into the batter in each cup.
Distribute the remaining batter evenly amongst the cups covering the chunk of cream cheese.
Sprinkle generously with raw sugar.
Bake at 425 degrees F. for 10 minutes. Then, without opening the oven door, reduce the temperature to 375 degrees F. for another 8-12 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out almost clean or with just a few moist crumbs attached.
Serve warm or at room temperature. Store covered in refrigerator.

Recipe Notes

*It's important that the eggs and milk are at room temperature. You don't want your melted butter to re-solidify when you mix it with these ingredients.

*The evaporated milk adds a lovely richness, but feel free to substitute in your favorite milk.

*I love the hint of spice in this recipe. If you only have cinnamon, use that, but don't add more to make up for missed spices, a pinch is fine unless you want lots of cinnamon flavor.

*I used fresh plump blueberries. If you use frozen, don't defrost first. Add them into the batter while they are still frozen.

*Yes, you may skip the cream cheese and simply have a delicious blueberry muffin!

*I melted my butter in a glass liquid measuring cup. The butter came up to a half cup, when I added my 2 large eggs, it was another half cup. It was easy to just pour my milk into that mixture and bring it all up to 1 1/2 cups. Then I added my vanilla and whisked it all together. This saved me another bowl to wash.