These muffins are waaaay over due. Remember last week when I was all “I bring in baked good every monday for my co-workers”? Well, I technically didn’t lie about that. But this week was a holiday on Monday, so I was going to bring them Tues. Then I played hookey from all my responsibilities on Monday and went frolicking in an apple orchard all day, shoved my face with cider donuts, then went to my friends and shoved more yummy baked apple things in my face.

Clearly, I was ditching my responsibilities for important stuff. Clearly…

yum! Streusal topping!

I was undaunted though when on Tuesday night I faced the challenge of making 3 dozen cinnamon muffins after working all day and going to a dance class. Who cares if it’s already 9 o’clock? I thrive in these situation. Procrastination is a very dear friend of mine. Think I’m kidding?

• In 5th grade, in what could be my first encounter with procrastination, I was forced to write a Dare essay for class. I waited until the last night and I can remember sitting at our kitchen table in NC with a very annoyed Mother near by. That paper won as the best in my class. I got a nice little award and got to read it in front of the school.

• In 10th grade, I was assigned to write a journal about a Civil War soldier. A journal? pssh, I’m going to make a whole frickin’ scrapbook complete with tea stained, hand written journal entries and mounted pictures from various sources…the night before. Oh yeah, got an A+ AND won the history award that year (Hermione and I could have been besties that year…I was a little bit of a kiss-ass…Hey, Ms. Donnelly!)

• In my junior year of college, I decided that working on research papers over an extended time was overrated. So for all my essay finals, I worked on them from about 8pm – 8am straight the night before they were due. I pretty much had instant french vanilla cappuccino running through my veins. Passed them all with flying colors!

Point being-  3 dozen muffins should be childs play for me. Except, I sort of didn’t take into account that this is a new recipe…and I wouldn’t know what to expect. Whoops! Cue the biggest baking disaster I’ve had in a very long time.

looked at that squished, mauled bottom. So sad...

Cinnamon Streusal Muffins

adapted from King Arthur Flour

Topping
1/3 cup brown sugar, packed
1/4 cup diced pecans (optional. I did not include since I know so many people who don’t like nuts)
1/4 cup rolled oats
1/2 cup King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
3 tablespoons Earth Balance vegan butter

Filling
3 TBS of Earth Balance vegan butter

1/2 cup of brown sugar

1 1/2 TBS ground cinnamon

3 to 4 tablespoons water

Batter
1/2 cup Earth Balance vegan butter, melted
3/4 cup unsweetened non-dairy milk (I used soy milk)
2 Ener-G “eggs” (Ener-G is an egg replacer you can get at Whole food. 1 egg = 1 1/2 tsp dry Egg Replacer plus 2 tbsp water)
1 3/4 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/2 cup rolled oats
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/2 cup cinnamon chips or butterscotch chips (I omitted the cinnamon chips because I just couldn’t find them anywhere. I’m not even sure if they are vegan. I think they would have added a lot to this recipe though)

Glaze:

4 TBS Confectioners Sugar

1-3 tsp of water

Splash of vanilla

Preheat your oven to 400°F. Line a 12-cup muffin pan with cupcake papers, or grease it lightly.

Prepare the topping by mixing the ingredients together until crumbly. Set aside.

Prepare the filling by mixing the Baker’s Cinnamon Filling with enough water to make filling with a soft, pudding-like consistency. Set it aside.

To make the batter: In a large bowl, whisk together the melted butter, milk, and eggs. In a separate bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients, including the chips. Add the dry mixture to the liquid, stirring just until combined.

Divide half the batter evenly among the muffin cups. Dollop 2 teaspoons cinnamon filling onto each muffin, then top with the remaining batter. Sprinkle with topping, pressing it in lightly. (NOTE: Do NOT over fill these. You want to be very careful with these. If the cinnamon sugar mixture overflows or seeps down outside the liner, it will form a lovely, sticky, hot glue that will prevent your muffins from coming out of the pan. )

Bake the muffins for 20 to 25 minutes, or until they’re golden brown. Remove them from the oven, and wait 5 minutes before transferring them from the pan to a rack to cool.

Mix Confectioners sugar,  water and vanilla together until its the consistency of glaze. Drizzle onto muffins with a spoon. Yield: 12 muffins.

The battlefield. See those streaks of brown? That would be the cinnamon sugar glue

Yes, so these were kind of messy but that was entirely my fault. As I noted above, be very careful when spooning the cinnamon mix into the cupcake liners. You don’t want it to drip anywhere else or it will form a lovely adhesive. Also, don’t over fill them. This is common sense for someone who works with cupcakes. With cupcakes though, they will cool and you can still pop them out of the pan without much problem. These have that sticky cinnamon which crystallizes to the pan and involves lots and lots of scraping…and cursing…to get the muffins out. And when you do, they are all ugly and deformed. So, yeah…don’t over fill them!

Don’t let the squished bottoms fool you though, they are still pretty tasty

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