The cream cheese batter for these muffins makes such a smooth-textured muffin that kids will never notice the whole grain flour!

Instead of white flour, I used a cracked, seven-grain cereal:

You can buy Bob’s Red Mill seven grain cereal at most grocery stores (cereal and baking aisles) or you can buy it here. You can then grind this cereal in your home blender, if the grains are already cracked, like this:

Just toss it in the blender and blend until it looks like flour!

Here’s the recipe:

Raspberries N’ Cream Muffins

2/3 cup cream cheese, softened

1/3 cup canola oil

1 and 1/2 cups sugar

2 egg whites

1 egg

1 and 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 cups fresh-ground, 7-grain flour

1 tsp. baking soda

1/2 cup buttermilk (or 1/2 cup regular milk with 1.5 tsp vinegar; let sit 5 minutes)

1/2 cup Raspberry Nuggets*

Beat cream cheese, oil, and sugar until fluffy. Beat in egg whites, egg, and vanilla. Combine dry ingredients separately, then fold into cream cheese mixture with buttermilk and raspberry nuggets.

Bake in canola-sprayed muffin tins at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes (mini-muffins) or 18-24 minutes (regular muffins).

These muffins are more of a dessert because they contain cream cheese and sugar and taste like cheesecake! But as far as desserts go, they’re ultra-healthy—how many cheesecakes have *you* eaten that are made from whole grains?

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*I used raspberry nuggets for the mini-muffins pictured here because I make them in large batches to freeze. Whenever I’m going on the road with the kids, I just grab a bag and go, and I can’t have real raspberries thawing and getting raspberry juice all over my kids’ clothes. You can use real raspberries, instead, though.

Filed under: Dessert Muffins, Fruit Muffins | Tagged: baking, cooking, food, healthy muffins, healthy muffins recipes, healthy recipes, muffin recipes, muffins for kids, recipes, whole grain muffins, whole grain recipes