Cream cheese to replace butter?

I was wondering how it would turn out if I used cream cheese to replace the butter in my muffin recipe. I'm taking basic blueberry muffin recipe and turning it into apple cinnamon. These are the ingredients, with my changes in bold.

3/4 cup whole wheat flour
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 medium diced apple (was 1 cup blueberries)
1/2 cup skim milk
1/4 cup egg beaters
1/4 splenda, granulated
3 tbsp. brown sugar (not packed)
2 tbsp. cream cheese (was 2 tbsp. light butter)
2 tbsp. unsweetened applesauce
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
3/4 tsp. cinnamon (was 1/2 tsp. vanilla)
1/4 tsp. salt

Could I get away with the replacement?

I don't know about cream cheese, but a lot of people use (unsweetened) apple sauce to replace butter in recipes. I haven't tried it myself, but I've seen it recommended all over CC :)

It might work and it might not.  I'm really against tweaking baking recipes because the ingredients must be carefully balanced to achieve satisfactory results.  You should be able to find plenty of tested recipes for fat free muffins. 

Applesauce generally works, but the result might be less airy, more wet, than you'd like. 

I don't really suggest messing with baking recipes unless you're willing to fail the first time. If you're just making them for yourself and can afford the time/ingredients, maybe you could go for it.

However, I don't think cream cheese melts the same way as butter (can someone confirm or correct me on this?).

If you want apple cinnamon muffins, maybe you could search for a brand new recipe.

Thanks for the replies guys. I didn't really wanna add more applesauce, because as it was, those 2 tbsp. were already replacing half the butter. I wanted to use something that was a little more close to the consistency of butter.

So I went ahead and used the cream cheese anyway. If it didn't come out, oh well. Muffin batter is just as good! LOL

But actually they came out perfectly fine. Flavorful and moist. I'm happy.

  I love tweaking muffin recipes, myself. Got my wife and kids eating hi fiber without them even knowing it!

  Some of what I do:

Replace milk with vanilla yogurt. Good for those of us who are lactose intolerant and adds protein.

Use applesauce, but add a bit more flour to the recipe, about half the sauce volume. I don't like soggy dense muffins.

Add dried fruit, blueberries, cranberries, etc. for the antioxidants, but I need to tweak up the baking powder when I'm adding dense ingredients to keep them from becoming bricks.

Use olive oil (*NOT* extra virgin) to replace oil and butter in recipes. You need *some* fats and oils in good muffins for mouth appeal, so you might as well get the benefits of olive oil. Only the Extra virgin adds a flavor and it's too expensive to use on muffins.

Add flax seed for fiber. Good for your heart and you'll never any change in either texture or flavor. I'm playing with recipes now and one of the things I think it does is result in a moister muffin, oddly enough.

Wheat germ in the recipe. Good for energy, changes nothing much and I can slip it into the oatmeal crumb topping fro both flavor and health.

Use squished brown bananas any place you would use an applesauce replacement. Sweetness, healthiness, flavor, and a chance to get your aggressions out. ;-) And no need to tweak the wet ingredients. I cut down on the sweeteners when I use brown bananas, the browner the better!

Good Luck all,

-CD

Thanks for all the tips! I'll definitely keep some of those in mind.

I was going to recommend applesauce too, but since the recipe already calls for it, it would probably be overkill. I have heard of people using nonfat yogurt in cookie recipes, so that might be a good substitute to try. Part of the fun of cooking is trying new things and mixing it up. Glad your muffins turned out well.

Enjoy!

Like another poster said, use mashed banana.  I have done this for years with chocolate chip cookies and they are divine!