Chocolate Cherry Streusel Muffin Tops

Submitted by Sharon123

"A favorite combo of flavors, these muffins resemble crumb cakes when made with streusel. The topping makes alot so you can use more for later or cut the topping in half. Update: I have made a few changes to make this even better!(Thanks Realtor!)"

 

• Ready In: 30mins
• Ingredients: 17
• Yields: 6-8 muffins
• Serves: 6

ingredients

• Batter

• 1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour (may sub 1/4 cup whole wheat flour)
• 1⁄2 cup granulated sugar (or use brown sugar)
• 1⁄2 cup sweet dried cherries, chopped (or sour dried cherries)
• 1⁄2 cup chocolate chips (optional)
• 1⁄4 cup Dutch-processed cocoa powder (or 3 tablespoons cocoa plus 1 tablespoon dark cocoa)
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1⁄4 teaspoon salt
• 1⁄4 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 2 large eggs
• 1⁄4 cup water

• Streusel Topping

• 3⁄4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
• 1⁄2 cup finely ground almonds (2 tablespoons extra flour if you don't have almonds)
• 1⁄2 cup confectioners' sugar
• 1⁄8 - 1⁄4 teaspoon salt
• 1⁄4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
• 1⁄2 teaspoon vanilla extract (or 1 teaspoon almond extract)
• 6 tablespoons butter

directions

1. Preheat oven to 350*F.

2. For the batter:

3. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, cherries, chips (if using), cocoa, baking powder and salt. Mix in the softened butter; the mixture will be crumbly.
4. Add eggs and water and mix until evenly moistened. Use a generous 1/4 cup of batter to fill the cups of the muffin pan.

5. For the topping:

6. In a medium bowl, whisk together all of the dry ingredients and the extract. Using a fork or your fingers, cut in the butter to form crumbs.
7. Top the entire surface of each muffin with a generous amount of crumbs.
8. Bake the muffin tops for 16-23 minutes, until a cake tester inserted in the center of one comes out clean.
9. Cool the tops for 5 minutes in the pan, and then transfer them to a rack to cool completely.
10. Dust with additional glazing or confectioners' sugar if desired. Enjoy!

Reviews

[Realtor by day, Chef by night]

These were really great tasting and EASY as can be. My daughter loved them. They really are a very nice combination of flavors. There were some parts missing from the recipe, though. There's no oven temp given so I just winged it and set the oven at 350. It doesn't say to grease the muffins cups or not so I didn't. It doesn't which pan to use so I used a regular muffin pan and ended up with 8 muffins. They were done at 23 minutes. I was very generous with the topping but still ended up with alot left. I'm saving it for the next batch. Next time I'm going to leave the salt out of the topping or at least cut it in half because we could taste it in there. Maybe I'll replace it with a tiny bit of cinnamon. That might be a nice addition. I think brown sugar in the topping instead of white would be nice, too. Thanks for sharing. I'll be making these again.

 

[MizEmerilLagasse]

I can't decide if these look better, smell better, or taste better. My goodness my house smells like chocolaty butter heaven, and I can't stop looking at these beautiful muffins. I doubled the batch and everything was perfect except that I don't think I needed that much streusel topping. I ended up throwing more than half of it away. Next time I will only make the normal amount of streusel for the double patch of muffins. Other than that the process was very easy, and the batter was rich and thick just like brownies. The muffins puffed perfectly in the oven, and were great for photos which I'll be posting later. Made for the 08/10 Tag. Thanks!!