Raspberry Cream-Cheese Muffins - LIGHT, and IC variations

Yummy yummy muffins, very moist and you would have no idea they were the "light" version.

Ingredients
2/3 cup (5 ounces) 1/3-less-fat cream cheese, softened
1/3 cup butter/margarine, softened
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract
2 large egg whites
1 large egg
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 (heaping) teaspoon baking powder
1/4 (heaping) teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup low-fat buttermilk
2 cups fresh or frozen raspberries
1/4 cup finely chopped walnuts (optional)

Preparation: Preheat oven to 350°.

Combine cream cheese and butter in a large bowl. Beat with a mixer at high speed until well blended. Add sugar; beat until fluffy. Add vanilla, egg whites, and egg; beat well.

Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. With mixer on low speed, add the flour mixture and buttermilk to cream cheese mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture. Gently fold in raspberries and walnuts.
Place 24 foil cup liners in muffin cups. Spoon batter evenly into liners. Bake at 350° 25 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean. Remove from pans; cool on a wire rack.
Yield
2 dozen (serving size: 1 muffin)

Nutritional Information
CALORIES 142(32% from fat); FAT 4.7g (sat 2.4g,mono 1.3g,poly 0.7g); PROTEIN 2.7g; CHOLESTEROL 19mg; CALCIUM 31mg; SODIUM 138mg; FIBER 1.1g; IRON 0.7mg; CARBOHYDRATE 22.6g
From Cooking Light


This recipe can also be made with fresh/frozen blueberries, or you can take a 1/2-3/4 cup (or more, depending on your taste !) of seedless raspberry, strawberry etc. jam and swirl it in. This will drop the fiber content, but sometimes, you just need a lil' berry. I am also going to try this with either just canned pineapple or a pineapple/berry mixture. I made them without walnuts and they are delicious.

Frozen berries work awesomely because they don't stain the batter and hold up really well. I added the (heaping) instruction to the baking powder and soda because they don't rise very much and are a little denser without the heapingness.

If you want to make them giant-muffins ( my batter yielded 12 regular muffins, and 4 giants for Ben's lunch) then bake them at 350 for the alloted regular muffin time, and then turn it down to around 325-315 until the big ones are done.... about 10 minutes longer.
I used dried buttermilk, added in with the rest of the dry ingredients, with the water added during the egg and vanilla stage.