Cinnamon Buttermilk Muffins with Struesel Topping

I've been eying these muffins for quite some time and I finally made them this weekend when I was looking for a way to use up some of the buttermilk I had sitting in my fridge from when I made the Spice Cake for Alison's birthday last week.

The muffin itself has a slightly sweet and subtle cinnamon flavor and bakes up with a moist, tender and fluffy crumb, thanks to the buttermilk. This is a nice contrast to the sweet brown sugar and cinnamon streusel that gives the muffins a crisp and sweet top. Without the topping, the subtle flavor of the muffin would be lost and the muffin might even be considered too plain.

The original recipe for this muffin, from Williams Sonoma, calls for dipping the muffins in melted butter and then in a cinnamon sugar topping. I would be interested in trying it this way, as I imagine both the look and the taste of them would be a lot like those yummy cinnamon sugar doughnuts.

Cinnamon Buttermilk Muffins
(Source: Bakingblonde's Weblog)

For the muffins:
7 Tbsp butter

2/3 cup sugar
1 egg
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
3/4 tsp ground Cinnamon
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

For the Struesel:
2 Tbsp flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
1 Tbsp butter, softened

1. Preheat an oven to 350°F. Grease 6 jumbo muffin cups with butter or butter-flavored nonstick cooking spray; fill the unused cups one-third full with water to prevent warping.

2. To make the muffins, in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the flat beater, combine the butter and sugar and beat on medium speed until light and fluffy. Add the egg and beat well until pale and smooth.

3. In another bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and nutmeg. Add to the butter mixture in 2 additions, alternating with the buttermilk and vanilla. Stir just until evenly moistened. The batter will be slightly lumpy.

4. Spoon the batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling each 2/3 full.

5. To make the topping, in a small bowl, mix the flour, brown sugar and cinnamon. Cut in butter with a pastry blender or forks until mixture resembles cornmeal. Gently sprinkle topping evenly over batter in prepared muffin tin. Gently press down topping slightly.

6. Bake until the muffins are golden, dry and springy to the touch and a toothpick inserted into the center of a muffin comes out clean, 25-27 minutes. Transfer the pan to a wire rack and let cool for 5 minutes. Unmold the muffins and let stand until cool enough to handle.

Makes 6 Jumbo Muffins (or 9 regular muffins)

Dixie Spice Cake with Caramel Frosting

In case you haven't noticed, we like to celebrate things at the office. We use pretty much anything as an excuse to have cake. This time it was Alison's birthday. She has gotten away with not celebrating her birthday for the last two years. I put a stop to that this year and she was a very good sport about it.

I really like spice cake. I think it has to be one of my favorite kinds of cake. It is also the only kind of cake I actually enjoy eating cream cheese frosting on. This particular spice cake was good, but I have definitely had better and will need to continue my search for the perfect spice cake recipe. The caramel frosting was very rich and was a nice change of pace from the cream cheese frosting you usually find it paired with.

Dixie Spice Cake with Caramel Frosting
(Source: Pillsbury Baking)

Cake:
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/4 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1 cup buttermilk
2/3 cup shortening
1 tsp vanilla
3 eggs
1 cup chopped walnuts or pecans (optional)

Caramel Frosting:
1/2 cup butter or margarine
1 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup milk
3 cups powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla

1. Heat oven to 350°F. Generously grease bottom only of 13x9-inch pan with shortening or cooking spray; lightly flour.

2. In large bowl, beat all cake ingredients except walnuts with electric mixer on low speed until moistened, scraping bowl occasionally. Beat on medium speed 3 minutes, scraping bowl occasionally. Stir in walnuts. Spread batter evenly in pan.

3. Bake 40 to 45 minutes or until top springs back when touched lightly in center. Cool completely, about 1 hour.

4. In 2-quart saucepan, melt butter. Stir in brown sugar. Cook over low heat 2 minutes, stirring constantly. Add milk; cook until mixture comes to a rolling boil. Remove from heat. Gradually beat in powdered sugar and vanilla until smooth. If needed, add a few drops of milk for desired spreading consistency. Spread over cooled cake.

Serves 24

Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake

This coffee cake from Baking Bites (can you tell I love Nicole's recipes?) is moist, rich and delicious. It is not a light cake by any means, but it is very tender and does not seem overly heavy or dense. Aside from the hitch with my stupid silicon fluted pan which pulled chunks off of the top, I didn’t have any problems and found the recipe to be fairly simple.

Cinnamon Streusel Coffee Cake
(Source: Baking Bites)

For the Streusel:

2 3/4 cups all purpose flour

3 tsp cinnamon

1 cup brown sugar
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup unsalted butter, softened

For the Cake:
2 1/2 cups all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
¾ cup unsalted butter, very soft

1 1/4 cups sugar

3 eggs

1 tsp vanilla extract

1 1/4 cups buttermilk (low fat or nonfat)

Preheat the oven to 350°F. Grease a 10-inch tube pan.

Make the streusel:

Place all your streusel ingredients, except for the butter, in a large bowl and stir together. Cut the butter into 10 or 12 large chunks and add them to the bowl. Using your hands, rub the butter into the flour mixture until the mixture is crumbly. Some pieces can be large - the size of an almond or pecan - but they shouldn’t all be that big. It may take 4-5 minutes because it is a bit harder to work with soft butter than firm. Set aside.

Make the batter:
Combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon and salt in a medium bowl and whisk until well combined.In a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar together on medium-high speed until smooth and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat eggs in one by one, followed by vanilla extract. Alternately add the buttermilk and the flour mixture, making sure to end with an addition of dry ingredients. Don’t forget to scrape down the sides of the bowl with a spatula as you mix.

Scrape half of your batter into the greased, 10-inch tube pan that you prepared earlier. Smooth batter with a spatula and top with streusel. Scrape remaining batter into pan, on top of streusel, gently spreading it to the sides of the pan with your spatula.

Bake at 350F for 60-70 minutes, until a tester comes out clean.

Place cake on a wire rack and allow to cool for 15 minutes. Run a sharp knife around the around the outer and inner edges of the pan. Remove tube portion with cake attached. Run knife over the bottom, loosening the cake. Gently replace cake in the pan, which will support it as you turn it upside down. Place a clean dishtowel on top of the pan and a baking sheet on top of that.

Carefully flip pan over, turning cake out onto the baking sheet. Reinvert onto wire rack. Allow to cool completely.

Serves up to 20.

Lemon Buttermilk Cookies

These Lemon Buttermilk Cutout Cookies, found over at Baking Bites, are soft, but not cakelike, cookies (almost like a shortbread cookie) with a hint of lemon, which adds a nice and springlike flavor to what would otherwise be a relatively plain cookie. The dough comes together very quickly and bakes up in only a few minutes, which means that it doesn’t take too long before you can get to the most important parts of cooking-making: decorating (which I am not so good at) and eating (which I am very good at).

Lemon Buttermilk Easter Cookies
(Source: Baking Bites)

2 3/4 cups all purpose flour

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

1 cup sugar

1/2 cup butter, very soft

1/2 cup buttermilk

1 large egg

1 tbsp lemon zest (from one lemon)
1 tsp vanilla extract

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda and salt.

2. In a large bowl, cream together sugar and butter. Beat in buttermilk, egg, zest and extract. Mixture may look a bit curdled if your buttermilk was cold. Don’t worry. With the mixer on low speed or by hand, add in the flour mixture, mixing just until no streaks of flour remain. Dough will be very soft.

3. Divide dough into two pieces. Wrap in plastic wrap and freeze for about 2 hours.

4. Preheat oven to 350°F.

5. Working with 1 piece of dough at a time, roll out to no more than 1/4-inch thick (slightly less than that is best) on a lightly floured surface and use a floured cookie cutter to make desired shapes. Transfer cookies to a parchment lined baking sheet. Reroll remaining dough, chilling for a few minutes if it becomes too warm to handle easily. Repeat with second piece of dough.

6. Bake for 10-12 minutes at 350F, until the edges are slightly firm to the touch but cookies are not browned (they may be slightly gold at the edges). Cool for a few minutes on baking sheet, then cool completely on a wire rack before icing.

Makes 3 dozen fairly large cookies.