Dark Chocolate Pistachio Cream Cheese Muffins

The Chocolate Addict's Baking Book

This is my friend Sabine's first cookbook, and she did a beautiful job of bringing all of these wonderful recipes together that celebrate chocolate! The Chocolate Addict's Baking Book is designed for beginners and advanced home bakers alike. It covers a broad spectrum of flavors to prove that chocolate can be combined with almost everything!

This cookbook is a masterpiece from the beautiful photos accompanying each recipe to the variety of flavor combinations!

If you love chocolate as much as I do, I would definitely recommend getting this cookbook! It would also make a great Christmas gift for the chocolate lover in your life! You can also find Sabine and her many other fabulous recipes over on Instagram and her blog, Also the Crumbs Please.

Baking Tools Needed

For making Sabine's dark chocolate pistachio cream cheese muffins, I recommend using the following baking tools.

• Cupcake Tins. You'll need two of them to make this recipe which yields about 19-20 muffins.
• Cupcake Liners. I used these basic black cupcake liners from Wilton. They also make a pack of 150 cupcake liners with black, unbleached, patterned, and white.
• Mixing Bowls. I used one for the streusel and one for the dry ingredients that get whisked together.
• Hand Mixer or Stand Mixer. Either one will come in quite handy when it comes time to mix the cream cheese, sugar, milk, eggs, and cooled melted butter.
• Cookie Scoop. Sabine recommends filling each liner up until almost full, so my 3-tablespoon size cookie scoop worked perfectly for this! Spoons or a smaller cookie scoop will work fine too.
• Whisks and Spatulas. The whisk comes in handy for mixing the dry ingredients together. The spatulas are perfect for scraping down the bowl's sides and folding in the pistachios. My all-time favorite brand to use for both is GIR!
• Wire Cooling Rack. I like to transfer my muffins and cupcakes to a wire cooling rack to cool completely after about 10-15 minutes.

How to Make the Recipe

Here's a general outline of how I made these dark chocolate pistachio muffins. It differs slightly from the full recipe because I make the streusel first and fold in the pistachios. The full recipe can be found below or by purchasing Sabine's new cookbook, The Chocolate Addict's Baking Book!

Prep your work area. This includes prepping the cupcake tins with the liners and preheating the oven. You'll use one full cupcake tin and a little over half of the other. You can go ahead and melt the butter you'll need for the cupcake batter to give it a little time to cool.

Make the streusel. In the full recipe, this is actually the 4th step, but I prefer to make it first so it's ready to go and the muffin batter doesn't need to sit. Make sure to use cold, cubed butter and your clean hands. Using your hands to mix this together may sound weird, but it is the easiest way to make this streusel! Fold in your chopped pistachios last.

Whisk the dry ingredients together. This includes all-purpose flour, dutch-processed cocoa powder, and baking powder.

Mix the wet ingredients together. First, mix the cream cheese, granulated sugar, and vanilla extract. Then add in your eggs, milk, and melted butter.

Fold in the pistachios. After you've added the whisked dry ingredients to the wet, fold in your pistachios. Make sure not to over-mix this cupcake batter. Use a cookie scoop for this part—it makes things super easy!

Fill and bake. Fill each cupcake liner until almost full. The batter won't spread and run over the sides. It will actually bake into a really nice dome shape! Bake at 425ºF for 5 minutes, then reduce to 350ºF and bake for another 11-13 minutes. Make sure to let them cool completely.

Freezing Muffins

Sabine recommends storing these in an airtight container at room temperature for up to 3 days or in the freezer for up to 2 months.

Quick Tips

1. Note the baking times—there are two! 425ºF for 5 minutes, then reduce the temperature to 350ºF and bake for another 11-13 minutes. You do not need to remove the muffins when you reduce the oven temperature, nor will you need to open the oven door.
2. Use shelled pistachios. Save yourself the frustration of removing all those shells before chopping them up and adding them to your recipe!
3. Craving more salt? Instead of using raw, plain pistachios, use the roasted and salted kind. So good and pairs nicely with dark chocolate!
4. Skip the food processor. I chopped up my pistachios in a Ziploc bag and a wooden spoon instead of using a food processor or food chopper. A rolling pin or meat tenderizer mallet works wonders as well.
5. Fold in your pistachios. This is for both the streusel and the cream cheese muffin batter.
6. Use a cookie scoop. I used my 3-tablespoon cookie scoop, which filled the cupcake liners perfectly.
7. Consistency. The muffin batter will be thicker but easily scoopable to place into the liners.