Vegan Raspberry Muffins with Cream Cheese Filling and Oat Crumbles

If I were standing in front of a cake and pastry buffet, I must admit that a muffin would not be my first choice. Not even my second choice. Although it's basically just a small cake (and I love simple loaf cakes), I often find muffins too boring and would like something more of them. A cupcake straight away? Not even necessarily, because they are usually TOO sweet for my taste. So I need something in between. Muffins have to prove themselves to me to win my heart. That's why I highly enjoy our coffee muffins with a salted caramel core or our chocolate-cherry muffins with cheesecake filling.

On the other hand, I almost overlooked our „very old” recipe for filled raspberry muffins until I came across it again recently. And I thought to myself: it's time for a makeover. Previously, these muffins consisted of a simple batter and a somewhat sad blob of raspberry jam in the middle as a filling. At least some whipped cream was on top, but that was it. You experienced an „exciting game” of soft and soft and soft consistencies when you bit into it. Don't worry if you're offended as you read this because these were YOUR favorite muffins – you can find the old recipe below to bake again.

But let's get to the new features first:

1. The basic batter is still basically the same, but it was a bit too boring for me. That's why I added whole raspberries for fruitiness and baked-stable chocolate drops for a little flavor counterbalance. The fact that they are baked-stable is important because otherwise, the chocolate will melt in the batter during baking. It's not the worst thing (some people might even like it), but I wanted to retain the slight bite of the chocolate drops.

2. The filling has been completely transformed. Instead of a blob of raspberry jam, there's now a fruity and tangy vegan cream cheese filling, which is mixed with the jam. This really makes a big difference; it creates super moist muffins and adds a little creaminess.

3. For the crowning touch at the end, the whipped cream had to give way to a layer of crumbles, which leads to a crispy texture on top. The crumble becomes really crunchy with oat flakes and nuts after baking. But it doesn't stay alone because where there are crumbles, there's always some icing, right? Because you have opened the vegan cream cheese once anyway, it also becomes the base of the icing and rounds off the muffin.

All ends well – at least that's what I would say, and I hope you like the many adjustments. If not, here is the old muffin recipe again.

Vegan Raspberry Muffins (old recipe)

For the batter:

• 250 g (2 cups) flour
• 20 g (2 tbsp) cornstarch
• 50 g (1.75 oz) ground almonds
• 100 g (0.5 cup) sugar
• 8 g (1.5 tsp) baking powder
• 8 g (1.5 tsp) vanilla sugar
• 200 ml (0.75 cup) plant-based milk
• 50 ml (0.25 cup) rapeseed oil
• 50 ml (0.25 cup sparkling water

Also:

• 100 g (3.5 oz) raspberry jam
• 200 ml (0.75 cup) plant-based heavy cream for whipping
• 8 g (2 tsp) cream stiffener
• 8 g (1.5 tsp) vanilla sugar

1. Mix flour, cornstarch, ground almonds, sugar, baking powder, and vanilla super in a bowl. Little by little, add plant-based milk, rapeseed oil, and sparkling water. Quickly mix all the ingredients until you get a smooth batter, then set aside.

2. In a second bowl, stir raspberry jam until smooth.

3. Preheat oven to 180 °C/355 °F (convection heat). If needed, grease and flour muffin tins. Add the batter until half of the tins are filled, then add 2 tsp of raspberry jam to each muffin. Cover with some more batter.

4. Bake at 180 °C / 355 °F (convection heat) for approximately 25 minutes. You can test their doneness with a toothpick – stick it in muffins if they come out clean, the muffins are done! Afterwards, let the muffins cool down.

5. Whip vegan heavy cream with cream stiffener and vanilla sugar and transfer to a piping bag or a freezer bag. Pipe the whipped cream on top of the muffins. Garnish with more raspberries or some cane sugar.