Artisan Bread Baking: Techniques and Recipes

The full written recipe is below, but let’s quickly walk through the steps first.

1. Make the zucchini batter: All basic ingredients here including flour, leaveners, egg, sugar, and vanilla. Compared to my zucchini bread batter, I add a little more baking powder so the muffins can rise up under the heavy cream cheese filling. I use a mix of brown sugar and granulated sugar for extra flavor—and I actually slightly reduced the amount of sugar since we’re adding the sweet cream cheese filling. Cinnamon and nutmeg add flavor. Use a box grater to shred the zucchini. I add a little extra zucchini for added volume.
2. Make the cream cheese filling: You need 4 simple ingredients for the cream cheese filling. Bring 5 ounces of brick cream cheese to room temperature, then beat it with 1 egg yolk, sugar, and a touch of vanilla extract. The egg yolk helps the cream cheese filling “set” like cheesecake. Don’t use a whole egg—the texture will taste off.
3. Assemble: Layer a heaping Tablespoon of zucchini batter into your lined muffin pan. Top with a Tablespoon of filling, then another heaping Tablespoon of zucchini batter. No need to swirl together. I always sprinkle crunchy coarse sugar on top because it adds a lovely contrast on the super soft muffins. I like Sugar in the Raw or white sparkling sugar sprinkles, which you can usually find with the sprinkles in the baking aisle.
4. Bake: Your kitchen will smell divine!

Possible Variations

• Carrot, Apple, or Banana: You can replace the shredded zucchini with shredded carrot for cream cheese carrot muffins. I always like a little ginger with carrot, so feel free to add 1/4 teaspoon of ground ginger to the carrot batter. You could replace the zucchini with shredded apple, too! This cream cheese filling would be wonderful with my banana muffins batter as well. For banana, carrot, or apple, follow the baking instructions and time(s) written below.
• Loaf instead of muffins: Use my zucchini bread recipe and feel free to skip the chocolate chips. Add half of the batter to the greased 9×5 inch loaf pan, spoon and gently spread this cream cheese filling on top, then carefully spread remaining zucchini batter on top. Use a toothpick or knife to swirl together, which will prevent the loaf from separating. (Not necessary for muffins.) Add about 5 minutes to the bread’s bake time.
• Double the recipe: To yield about 20-22 muffins, feel free to double the recipe below by doubling each ingredient. Instead of 2 egg yolks in the cream cheese filling, 1 full egg will work.

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