Caramel Cinnamon Muffins

Valerie makes the muffins in our house.  Me and muffin pans don't like each other.  She'll be the first to tell you she doesn't cook, but she can bake muffins with the best of 'em.  When I saw this recipe, I showed it to her and asked her to make them for the family, and she happily obliged.

The ingredients in this recipe are very simple and we had all of them on hand.  The batter comes together easily, but what sets this recipe apart from others is adding brown sugar and butter to each muffin pan before the batter.  This technique reminded me of pineapple upside-down cake where batter is poured directly on a butter, brown sugar mixture.

The recipe calls for the use of 14 muffin pans, but we only did 12 since that is the number of openings our muffin pan has.   So we only needed 6 teaspoons of butter and 12 teaspoons of brown sugar.  We followed the rest of the recipe as written.

The muffins were delicious.  I was a little nervous about them sticking to the pan, but had little issue with it.  There is a slight crunch on the bottom from the sugar caramelizing and the muffins are light and not too sweet.  They did not store well, however, so it is best to eat them fresh.  I don't see that being a problem next time.

Caramel Cinnamon Muffins

Printable Recipe

Ingredients

6 teaspoons butter

12 teaspoons plus 1/4 cup brown sugar

2 cups cake flour

1 tablespoon baking powder

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 egg

1 cup milk or 1/2 cup evaporated milk and 1/2 cup water

2 tablespoons melted shortening

Instructions

Grease 12 muffin pans; into each place 1/2 teaspoon butter and 1 teaspoon brown sugar.

Combine flour, baking powder, salt and cinnamon and sift. Beat egg; add milk and melted shortening; add remaining 1/4 cup brown sugar. Add to dry ingredients all at once; stir quickly until just mixed and appears lumpy.

Quickly pour into pans, fill about 2/3 full. Bake in hot oven 425 degrees for 20 minutes or until golden brown. Makes 12 muffins.