A Craving & The Winners!

This recipe was inspired by a craving for all things cinnamon sugar. I couldn't decide if I wanted to make cinnamon sugar donut muffins, or snickerdoodle muffins, or french breakfast puffs. But then I started to feel guilty about eating such decadent things so early in the day so I decided to adapt my favorite coffee cake recipe from Ina and add my version of cinnamon sugar in two ways.

These were very decadent. I don't know what I was thinking, but I certainly didn't lighten anything up :-) The muffin itself is wonderful , light and moist and best the day they're made. It's a perfect basic muffin to eat plain or with other add-ins like Ina's blueberry coffee cake muffin version I made last year. We had two each (one with sugared tops and the other plain) with breakfast sausage and a tall cuppa. It made a nice leisurely weekend breakfast.

Cinnamon Sugar Coffee Cake Muffins

adapted from Ina

~makes 10 muffins

• 6 tablespoons (3/4 sticks) unsalted butter, at room temperature
• 3/4 cups sugar
• 2 large eggs, at room temperature
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• 4 ounces (about 1/2 cup) sour cream
• 1/8 cup milk
• 1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Cinnamon Brown Sugar Filling

• 1/3 cup packed brown sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Cinnamon Sugar Topping (optional)

• 3 tablespoons melted butter
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Place 10 paper liners in muffin pans or spray muffin pans with non stick spray.

In a small bowl combine your brown sugar and cinnamon. Mix and set aside. In another small bowl combine the granulated sugar and cinnamon. Mix and set aside. In a large bowl with a hand mixer, cream the butter and sugar until light and fluffy. With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs 1 at a time, then add the vanilla, sour cream, and milk. In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, cinnamon, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. With the mixer on low speed add the flour mixture to the batter and beat until just mixed.

Scoop a tablespoon of the batter into the prepared muffin pans. Evenly spoon the brown sugar mixture into the muffin cups, being sure to keep the sugar in the center of the batter and not touching the sides of the pan. (This will help them release from the pans, but if you use paper liners, it's not much of an issue.)

Spoon the remaining batter over the brown sugar mixture, filling each cup just to the top. Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until the muffins are lightly browned on top and a cake tester comes out clean. Melt the butter in a small dish and set aside.

Allow the muffins to cool a bit before removing them from the pan. Dip the muffin tops in the melted butter and roll them in the cinnamon sugar, or sprinkle them generously with the granulated sugar blend. Enjoy with a cuppa hot coffee.

Dawn, this cinnamon coffee cake sausage muffin, is just for you!

And the winners of the baking liners are...

Congratulations Kathy of Three On Food and Ingrid of 3 B's- Baseball, Baking and Books! I hope you'll share your baking with us. Save a cupcake for me!

Ladies email me with your addresses so I can get these out to you in time for Mother's Day!

Thank you all for participating. I hope you'll come back and visit me even though I don't always have giveaways. For those interested in purchasing the baking liners, they can be found at Hobby Lobby in their party planning aisle.