Cinnamon Bun Muffins

This recipe showed up in my January 2011 Cooking Club magazine as Cinnamon Bun Bread. A club member tester suggested that it would make a good muffin recipe, which got my tiny creative gear turning. I'd originally planned to make this the first week of January, but wound up having to post-pone as I was sick. Here the recipe is now, in muffin form.

Cinnamon Bun Muffins

adapted from Cooking Club of America

FILLING

1/4 c sugar
1/3 c chopped toasted walnuts
1 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

BREAD
1 3/4 c all-purpose flour

1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 c sugar
1/4 c unsalted butter, softened
1 egg
1 1/4 tsp vanilla extract
3/4 c whole milk

ICING

1 c powdered sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
1 to 2 tbsp whole milk

Heat oven to 350°F. Place liners in a 12-place muffin pan.

Combine all filling ingredients in small bowl. Whisk flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt in medium bowl.


Beat 1 cup sugar and butter in large bowl at medium speed 3 minutes or until light and fluffy. Beat in egg and 1 1/4 teaspoons vanilla until smooth and well-blended.

At low speed, beat in flour mixture in 3 parts alternately with 3/4 cup milk, beginning and ending with flour mixture.

Meanwhile, if you haven't already, place walnuts on a baking sheet and bake at 350°F until fragrant and slightly browned, about 6-8 minutes. Cool nuts, chop, and combine with cinnamon and sugar.

Spread half of the batter in muffin liners ; sprinkle with half of the filling.

I used a #40 scoop (equivalent to 1.5 or 2 tbsp depending on which site you look at for equivalences) for the batter and about 1 tsp filling per muffin.

Top with half of the remaining batter. Sprinkle with remaining filling.

Again with the #40 scoop for batter -- it worked out perfectly -- and 1 tsp filling.

Bake 13-17 minutes or until golden brown and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack 10 minutes. Remove from pan; cool completely.

I did exactly 15 minutes for baking time, but assumed your oven might be a little cooler or a little hotter.

Whisk powdered sugar, 1/4 teaspoon vanilla and 1 tablespoon of the milk in small bowl, adding additional milk for desired consistency.

I forgot to get a photo of this combined -- mine wound up too thick and I should've added more milk.

Drizzle over top of bread, allowing to drip down sides.


Let stand until icing is set.


Ding, dang! I can't believe how well these muffins turned out! I'm not only amazed at the fact that I was able to prepare muffins from a bread recipe without explicit instructions, but that the muffins actually tasted very much like cinnamon buns! Win-win! (Could I use any more exclamation points!? said in my best Chandler Bing voice.)

The only things I would do differently is

1. use a smaller quantity of batter at the bottom of the muffin cups, add the same quantity of filling, and top that with the more-than-half remaining batter. Not that it would change how the muffins turned out, but because then the second filling layer wouldn't be so close to the final filling layer and the filling would actually look like filling rather than seeped-in final filling.
2. use more milk to thin out the icing

Fantastic muffins, definitely worth doing again, done in less than 1.5 hours.

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