Cherry Muffins with Graham Crumb Streusel
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Cherry Muffins with Graham Crumb Streusel. Beautifully light vanilla and almond flavoured muffins with ripe cherries at the centre and a topping of crispy, buttery graham cracker crumb streusel. Delicious, impressive, and probably much easier than you think to prepare.
Originally published June 2014.
Cherry muffins for brunch today? I'm always excited to see fresh, dark, sweet cherries in the produce section at the supermarket, especially when they are on sale. Bonus!
It's hard to grow good cherries this far in the northeast. However,a couple of friends have supplied me with some small sweet cherries from their ever fruitful trees on occasion.
I usually make cherry jam from those which is particularly good on our "old faithful" recipe for Sour Cream Custard Flan.
From cherry cobbler to cherry cafloutis I can't get enough of one of my favourite Spring fruits.
Ensuring even cherry distribution is key.
Sunday brunch was on the agenda this weekend though and a new version of cherry muffins seemed to be a good idea to put these to good use.
I always obsess on getting an equal distribution of fruit in muffins. Often I find myself stealing a piece of apple or a few blueberries from the batter in one muffin cup to another to spread the wealth.
Since the cherries could be easily added to each muffin cup, I decided to make a bit of a thicker batter this time. That was to see if I could sort of suspend the cherries near the centre to form a sort of "fruit in the middle" type of cherry muffin.
Success! It worked perfectly.
Elevate muffins with a buttery streusel topping.
I am quite partial to a streusel topping on coffee cakes and muffins. Maybe it was because I was thinking of making a cherry cheesecake that the idea of adding a buttery streusel that included graham cracker crumbs occurred to me.
No matter why, it turned out to be delicious addition and gave a little extra crunch to the top of these scrumptious muffins. They turned out perfectly, were light but still dense enough not to collapse without the help of paper liners.
At first sight these cherry muffins may seem a little complicated or intimidating. But, if you read the recipe instructions, they are actually quite easy to prepare.
My favourite kind of recipe.
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Cherry Muffins with Graham Crumb Streusel
Beautifully light vanilla and almond flavored muffins with ripe cherries at the center and a topping of crispy, buttery graham cracker crumb streusel. Delicious, impressive, and probably much easier than you think to prepare.
Ingredients
for the muffins
- 2 cups flour
- 2 teaspoon baking powder
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 large eggs
- ⅓ cup oil
- ¾ cup milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- ¼ teaspoon almond extract, optional
- 24 fresh pitted cherries
For the graham crumb streusel
- ⅓ cup graham cracker crumbs
- ⅓ cup flour
- 3 tablespoon brown sugar
- ¼ cup butter
Instructions
- For the muffin batter
- Grease a 12 muffin pan very well, including the top of the pan in case the batter blooms over the edges. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F.
- Sift together the flour and baking powder.
- Whisk together the sugar, oil, eggs and extract/s.
- Stir in the milk.
- Add the dry ingredients all at once and stir only until the flour is incorporated. Do not over-mix or your muffins risk becoming too dense. Some small lumps in the batter are perfectly fine.
- Fill the muffin pans half full with batter.
- Lay 2 cherries on top of the batter and spoon the remaining batter over the cherries.
- Top with the Graham Crumb Streusel.
For the graham crumb streusel
- Rub all of the ingredients together with your hands until the butter is fully incorporated into the dry ingredients and the mixture holds together when pressed together in fistfuls.
- Press the streusel together in small handfuls and break off small pieces about the size of the top of your little finger. Sprinkle them over the muffin batter in the pans.
- Bake for 25-30 minutes or until the centers of the muffins spring back to the touch and a wooden toothpick inserted into the center turns out clean.
- Cool on a wire rack for about 15 minutes before attempting to remove them from the pan.
Recommended Products
Rock Recipes a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. Our product recommendations are almost exclusively for those we currently use or have used in the past.
Nutrition Information
Yield
12Serving Size
1 muffinAmount Per Serving Calories 293Total Fat 12gSaturated Fat 3gTrans Fat 0gUnsaturated Fat 8gCholesterol 42mgSodium 144mgCarbohydrates 43gFiber 1gSugar 22gProtein 4g
The nutritional information provided is automatically calculated by third party software and is meant as a guideline only. Exact accuracy is not guaranteed. For recipes where all ingredients may not be used entirely, such as those with coatings on meats, or with sauces or dressings for example, calorie & nutritional values per serving will likely be somewhat lower than indicated.
Wowsers! These look so good, love the crumb texture on top.
Just wanted to comment and say that I am just making these muffins and I'm looking forward to eating them. But one little thing.......you need 12 pitted cherries, not 24. If the recipe makes 12 muffins and each muffin has 2 halves (1 cherry), then you only need 12 cherries. I have 12 extra cherries that I have to eat as I discovered this after I started putting the cherries into the muffins.
Nope, I put two whole cherries in each one as the photos show and the recipe says. I'm a little confused; why did you think they were half cherries?
Is it normal for there to be many air pockets inside this muffin? I love the recipe but when I compare it to creaming method, the muffins produced don't have as many air pockets. I used hand whisk to mix the dry and wet ingredients, could this have led to the air pockets?
I didn't have that issue as the photo shows. Use less baking powder next time if the problem persists. Elevation can affect these things too.
Hi Barry
I wonder could you use Partridheberrie instead of cherries in this recipie
Don't see why not.
Made these this morning......yummy. I did use the almond extract, and will continue to use it. Wasn't too strong, just gave a hint of almond. Made exactly as you suggested, used whisk, and didn't over mix.
One question....can i use the paper liners on these? I greased as you said, but usually use the liners. Want to make again.
Could I use frozen whole cherries instead of fresh if I thaw them out first? Thanks
I made three batches of these amazing muffins: cherries, strawberries (large berries were cut in half and fitted into batter opposite each other like shoes in a box - toe to heel and heel to toe) and wild blueberries. (Each batch of batter was made separately.) The graham streusel was tripled and for the last strawberry batch, I added 1/4 tsp cinnamon to the remaining streusel just to have a slight difference in flavour for the strawberries. They were gobbled up at the senior's card party and cottagers alike.
I was wondering if this batter could be made for a 8"(9") x 8"(9") pan like your blueberry snack'n cake? I like how the thicker batter helps suspend the fruit.
Never tried that but I like the idea!
I made these a couple of days ago. They were quick and easy to make. The only thing I did differently was changing up the fruit. I used the few cherries I had in a few muffins. I added blackberries to a few, blueberries to a few more and diced nectarine to the last few. All tasted great.