Miss Fats has spent the last six months on a breakfast baking experiment. She’s never been much of a morning sweets baker (except for a scone here or there), but her coordinating duties have called for a plethora of breakfast baked goods. Each week, she’s been trying out essentially a new recipe (though there’s been a couple of lazy repeats) and in the past week she hit a high: lemon cream cheese coffee cake.

She tried this recipe out two weeks ago as a muffin and it was a huge hit. So when last Saturday demanded a breakfast sweet for a brunch crowd, she went for it in giant coffee cake form. This recipe is adapted from one that’s been making the rounds on pinterest and the original can be found here. Miss Fats has made a couple of adjustments that are crucial when switching between the cake and muffin. Just follow these tweaks and soon you’ll be in tasty lemon heaven.

Buttery Lemon Cream Cheese Coffee Cake Muffins:

adapted from coffee crumb cake with lemon cheesecake filling

makes 12 large muffins

Filling:

1 8oz package of cream cheese, softened (must be soft!)

1 egg yolk

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp vanilla

juice of 1 lemon

zest of 1 lemon

pinch of salt

Cake:

1 cup butter (2 sticks) softened to room temperature

1 cup sugar

2 eggs

1/3 cup sour cream

2 cups flour

2 tsp baking powder

healthy pinch of salt

Topping:

1/4 cup butter softened to room temperature

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 tbs sugar

1/3 cup flour

pinch of salt

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Line muffin tin with liners or grease. Make the filling: cream the cream cheese and sugar on high until they are well incorporated. Add the egg yolk, vanilla, lemon juice and zest. Mix until well combined. Note: this step can easily be done ahead of time and the filling stored in the fridge.

2. Make the cake: cream the butter and sugar on high until light and fluffy (about 3 minutes). Add the eggs, sour cream and vanilla and beat until well incorporated (may look a little grainy but it will come together). Carefully add the flour, baking powder and salt, mixing until incorporated. The batter will be VERY thick.

3. Assemble the muffins: spoon about 2 tbs of cake batter into each muffin tin, doing your best to spread it across the bottom. Add about 2 tbs of the filling on top. Finish off the tops with the remaining batter. This was a little difficult. Miss Fats had to use her fingers to make sure the cake batter covered the top of the filling (if it doesn’t quite cover and there’s some filling squishing out of the top: do not worry).

4. Make the topping: mix the flour, sugars and salt in a small bowl. Add the butter and using your fingers, break up the butter into small bits to create a crumb-like texture. Sprinkle a generous amount of the topping over each muffin. Bake for approximately 20 minutes or until a tooth pick comes out relatively (may have a bit of cream cheese filling on it) clean and the tops are crispy and golden.

So you’ve basically got the recipe for this in coffee cake form, however Miss Fats recommends a couple of changes:

Use the same filling recipe Miss Fat’s has listed above, but double the lemon. The original recipe makes way too much that can’t really fit in the middle given the thickness of the batter. Plus eff lemon extract: use a real lemon! Multiply the cake recipe by 1.5. You need more cake batter than both the muffin and original call for: 9×13 is a damn big pan! Plus this makes for a thick and delicious cake. Follow all the instructions as listed above: the only change is the assembly (which is actually easier in cake form). Spread half your batter into the bottom of a greased 9×13 pan, followed by all your filling (Miss Fats recommends leaving a 2 inch boarder around this spread), and finally the rest of the cake batter. Use those fingers to cover the delicious filling. Using the same topping recipe, spread all over top. Bake for approximately 50 minutes.

Miss Fats was a total failure documenting the filling action, but she hopes you’ll just trust her and go make this crazy tasty recipe. Plus its a way better surprise when you take that first bite into a hot coffee cake muffin. Just you wait.

Monster muffin reminded Miss Fats of a creamy blonde kitty. So here’s a little guy to go with your morning cake: