Coffee Cake Mini Muffins

Have you ever read through a recipe, knew what you were doing then somehow did it wrong? Well that does happen to me occasionally. Sometimes like the time I added a whole egg to a bread dough when it was supposed to be the wash, the results actually ended up being better than the original recipe. Being able to recognize you've made a mistake like forgot to put the yeast in the bread dough gives you time to correct it. Other times it ends up realizing you did something wrong then taking the let's hope this turns out ok attitude. Yesterday I found myself in that exact position!

Prep

The last couple of weeks have been utter chaos with life changing events and a lot of stress. When I'm stressed I cook which is not always a good thing because sometimes I miss a little detail in a recipe that makes the end product come out as the recipe author intended. Despite that I decided to try a new muffin recipe for the grandkids. I read through the recipe then set to work making the batter and the spice mix then filled the mini muffin tins. THEN I read where the muffin tins were supposed to be filled half full, add the spice mix then fill the rest of the way. Well it was too late so I decided to improvise. After all I reasoned that the spice mixture was similar to a streusel topping and all the flavours would still be there. The worst I figured would happen if I spooned the mixture on top was the sugar would caramelize. So I proceeded to put a teaspoon of the spice mix on top of each muffing as pictured.

Coffee Cake Muffins

Surprisingly the spice mix didn't caramelize as much as I thought it would. The little muffins were a bit harder to get out of the pan but only because some of the sugar melted around the edges. Once cooled most of them popped right out using only a slight twist. A couple needed a gentle pop up but all came out in tact and looking good. For a blatant mistake I think they look pretty good. I'm sure the grandkids will love their kid sized treats!

Coffee Cake Muffins
source: modified from Jean Paré, Company's Coming Muffins & More, 1983. Edmonton, Alberta. Pp. 15

1½ c unbleached flour
2 tsp baking powder
½ tsp sea salt
¼ c butter
½ c organic sugar
1 egg
¾ c milk
½ tsp pure vanilla

spice mix
½ c brown sugar
2 tbsp unbleached flour
1 tsp cinnamon

Stir the flour, baking powder and salt together in a large bowl. Combine spice mix ingredients in a small bowl. Place the butter, sugar and egg in the bowl of a stand mixer and beat until well mixed Mix in the milk and vanilla. Pour into dry ingredients and mix until moistened. Spoon batter into greased mini muffin tins. Pour 1 tsp of the spice mix over each. Bake ate 200ºC/400ºF for 20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted comes out clean.
Yield: 24 mini muffins