Raspberry Cream Cheese Breakfast Buns - Magnolia Bakery Recipe

I had heard about how great Magnolia Bakery is from numerous people, so I was especially excited when my friends gave me The Complete Magnolia Bakery Cookbook
as a present. Having baked quite a number of recipes from the book, I would highly recommend that you buy it. The recipes are simple but the results are totally divine due to its perfect execution. Both the vanilla and chocolate cupcakes and matching frosting are excellent and the bases are now my default cupcake/cake base to add any flavouring to. I can't wait to visit Magnolia Bakery in person one day. It would be one of many of my culinary dreams come true.

I read from the book how one of their most popular items are the Raspberry Cream Cheese Breakfast Buns. I wasn't quite sure how this would work with the cream cheese in it, so was intrigued to try it out. The resulting item is shown below.


It's an awesome bun, soft, moist, smooth and with a wonderful fragrant flavour. It's sort of like a sponge cake-ish fruit jam muffin haha. You can't really taste the cream cheese flavour, more feel the smooth texture. The raspberry jam gets caramelised a bit and burnt and gives the whole bun the most wonderful flavour that I can't stop eating.


Tips
- Don't fill up the muffin tins with too much batter as it rises quite a lot. About 2/3 full is enough.
- I found it easier to work with the jam if I left it out of the fridge for a while to soften.
- Don't overstir the raspberry jam to get a nicer pattern but you do need to push some of it under the batter or it will sort of roll off the bun and all onto the sides.
- It's worth putting a tray under the muffin tin as some of the jam may overflow and it's hard to clean off the oven.
- The buns are quite sweet, so if you prefer it less sweet, reduce the sugar, or use 2 teaspoons of jam like I do.

That's all the tips I have as this recipe is so easy and tastes so amazing. I've made this many times and even tried other jams. While they are all nice, I like the slight tart flavour of the raspberry jam most.


Magnolia Bakery's Raspberry Cream Cheese Breakfast Buns
Makes 12

1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
230g cream cheese, softened
115g unsalted butter, softened
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs, room temperature
1/4 cup milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

1/2 cup raspberry preserves

Preheat oven to 175C. Line 12 muffin cups.

In a small bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.

In a large bowl, on the medium speed of an electric mixer, beat together the cream cheese, butter, and sugar until smooth, about 3 minutes. Add the eggs and beat well. Add the dry ingredients in two parts, alternating with the milk and vanilla.

Spoon the batter into the muffin cups, filling them about two-thirds full. Drop 3 small dollops (about a teaspoonful each) of raspberry preserves onto the top of each bun and, using the tip of a sharp knife, swirl the preserves into the batter, forming a decorative pattern. Bake for 25–30 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted in the center of the bun comes out clean. Allow the buns to cool for about 30 minutes before serving.