Cinnamon Chip Muffins

One of our choir members throws an epic Break-the-Fast every year.  She doesn't provide dessert, though, so there's something for people to bring if they're not into bringing drinks.  I only drink water there.  For one thing, I'm driving home, and for another either alcohol or a sweet drink will hit the system very hard after a fast.

I also got to break out my new mini-muffin tin.  Two dozen cute, one-bite muffins on a single tray.  They're so poppable!  It also means that I have no idea what the yield on this recipe is for any other shape, except that The Bright Eyed Baker got 18 regular muffins out of her batch.  I got the two dozen minis and two mini loaves, because Yom Kippur morning services ran long and I only had enough time to throw in all of the batter at once, instead of the two bakes I had planned.

When you get down to the muffin ingredients, there's buttermilk listed.  Since there isn't any baking soda in this recipe, which requires an acid to activate, you can use regular milk.  To approximate the taste of buttermilk, add a teaspoon of apple cider vinegar to the milk and let it sit five minutes to sour up a bit.

Crumb Topping

3/4 C sugar
1 Tb cinnamon
1/8 tsp salt
6 Tb (3/4 C) melted unsalted butter
3/4 C whole wheat flour

1.  Stir together sugar, cinnamon, and salt.  Pour in melted butter and stir into a glop.  Add flour and it will become more crumbly.  If not using immediately, form into a ball and wrap in wax paper.  Refrigerate until half an hour before you need it, so it can soften a little.  Then you can break it into crumbs.  Also freezes for long-term storage.

Muffins
1-1/2 C All-purpose flour
1/2 C whole wheat flour
2-1/2 tsp baking powder
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 C sugar
1/3 C oil
2 eggs
1-1/4 C buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla
1 C cinnamon chips

1.  Preheat oven to 375º.  Grease or pan-spray nonstick muffin pans for 18 muffins.  You could do liners, but these came out of the greased pan pretty well.  The mini-loaves put up more of a fight, so I'd hesitate to use a patterned cake pan.

2.  Combine both flours, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt.  That's the dry team.  The wet team is the buttermilk and vanilla.

3.  In mixer, beat together sugar and oil until smooth.  Add eggs one at a time until uniform and a little fluffy.

4.  Alternating dry/wet, add flour mix and milk, beating just until combined.  Stir in cinnamon chips.

5.  Fill greased muffin cups 2/3 full.  Top with crumb.  Bake 15 minutes, then lower oven to 350º and start checking for doneness at the 18 minute mark.  Allow to cool 10 minutes in the pan, then turn out onto a rack to finish cooling before storage.

Makes 18 muffins

Difficulty rating  :)