Dark Chocolate Pistachio Cream Cheese Muffins (Cupcakes!)
Description
My kids gave me an amazing new book for my birthday and these beauties were the first I wanted to try. Borrowed from, ‘The Chocolate Addict’s Baking Book’, by Sabine Venier, there are going to be several new recipes coming soon!
Ingredients
Muffins/Cupcakes
2 c. (270 g) flour AND 1 c. (85 g) cocoa
4 t. (16 g) baking powder AND 1/4 t. salt
1 package (250 g) cream cheese, softened AND 1 c. sugar AND 1 t. vanilla
2 eggs AND 1 c. milk
1/2 c. (113 g) butter, melted, but as cool as possible
1 c. (130 g) shelled and peeled pistachios – I used roasted and salted pistachios
Streusel
1/3 c. (45 g) flour AND 2 T. sugar
3 T. (43 g) cold butter, cubed
1/2 c. (65 g) shelled and peeled pistachios – I used roasted and salted pistachios
Instructions
Preheat the oven to 425 and line 18 muffin cups with papers – I found 18 to be perfect (full cups!), but if you were fine with smaller portions, I bet you could squeeze out 24 (just cook them for less time). In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking powder and salt and set this aside.
Using your electric mixer, beat the cream cheese with the sugar and vanilla for a couple of minutes until well combined and very smooth – scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed. Add the eggs, milk and melted butter and then mix on low until incorporated – about 1 minute. With the mixer still on low, slowly and carefully add the dry mix, stopping the mixer to scrape down the sides of the bowl if needed. Fold in the pistachios.
For the streusel, use your fingers to combine flour, sugar and cold butter, then quickly work in the pistachios. You want this to be crumbly, not pasty.
Spoon the batter evenly into however many ‘muffins’ you’ve decided to make and top each with an equal amount of streusel. Bake for 5 minutes at 425, then reduce the heat to 350 and bake for about 10 minutes more. When I’m dealing with thicker, heavier batter I find it easiest to use an instant thermometer and aim for an internal temperature of 200 for all cake.
Allow the muffins to cool in the pan for about 15 minutes before removing to a rack to cool completely – we also thought these came out of the freezer beautifully – enjoy!
