The Coastie Life: Adventures in Baking: Snickerdoodle Muffins

One of my all-time favorite cookies is the Snickerdoodle. Mmm... they are so yummy. I think I like them because they are so light - the texture is delightful and the taste is so subtle. I can eat a dozen before I realize it! Another reason I love snickerdoodles is because they are so fun to make. Rolling dough in cinnamon sugar is just a good excuse to lick my fingers, then the spoon, then heck... why not? The entire bowl. The third reason I like making snickerdoodles is because it is the only cookie that I always have all the ingredients in my pantry at any given time. I can't keep chocolate chips in the house... they get eaten by the handful!

So anyways, last night as I was perusing Pinterest, I came across a recipe for a snickerdoodle muffin. Even though it was 8 o'clock at night, I began to think about breakfast. How yummy did these sound? So yummy. However, I didn't like the recipe. I searched the internet until I found one that I did like - simple and quick and with all the ingredients already in my pantry. I was set.

About 2 hours later, I was still thinking about the snickerdoodle muffin. The recipe I had found was still not quite right. One recipe had required rolling the muffin dough in cinnamon sugar. Huh? The second required baking the muffins, then dipping them in melted butter then cinnamon sugar. I'm not sure why, but somehow that just sounded like muffin blasphemy! That's just plain ol' awkward. So, I thought... streusel! Of course! The go-to topping of choice and SO much easier than rolling individual muffins. So, I found the easiest recipe for streusel possible and combined 2 recipes, and even added an additional ingredient.

Here's the experiment.

You'll need:

Dry ingredients:
1/2 C sugar
1 & 1/2 C all-purpose flour
1 & 1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. nutmeg
1/2 t. cinnamon (my addition)

Wet ingredients:
1/3 C butter, melted
1 egg (room temperature)
1/2 C milk

Streusel topping:
1/4 C brown sugar
1 T soft butter (room temperature)
1/2 t. cinnamon
*You could also add a couple of tablespoons of flour if you like, but I thought, why take away from the creamy goodness of brown sugar?

Heat your oven to 350 degrees.

First, mix all dry ingredients together in a medium-large bowl.

Sift dry ingredients.

Combine with wet ingredients and mix just until the dry ingredients are wet. The batter will be lumpy.

Place in your muffin tins. I got a full dozen with this recipe.

Next, make your streusel by combing the brown sugar, butter, and cinnamon in another small bowl. Stir with a fork until it is moist but crumbly (see above).

Gently sprinkle the streusel on each muffin. You don't have to press it in!