Club: BAKED - A Tale of 2 Pumpkin Muffins

Today is October 1st.  Break out the pumpkin!  If you're looking for an excuse to buy pumpkin now that its on the shelves, try these muffins.  I altered it (drastically) from the savory Pumpkin Cheddar muffins recipe that was chosen as this week's baked goodie for Club Baked, and I'm happy with the results.  In addition to my savory to sweet adjustment, I also split my batter in half and made two varieties: Espresso Pumpkin Muffins and Pumpkin Pie Muffins.  I'm not sure which one I love more!  I've posted my recipe below as it is so different from the original, but if you're interested in the savory Pumpkin Cheddar version, see Billie of the blog Chocolate & Chakra - the host of this week's recipe.  Thanks for hosting and picking this wonderfully Fall recipe, Billie!

Pumpkin Muffins two ways: 1 with Espresso and 1 with Pumpkin Pie spice
Yields 15 cupcake-sized muffins
Ingredients:
1 cup canned pumpkin puree
3 tablespoons light sour cream
2 large eggs, room temp
1 stick unsalted butter, melted & cooled
2 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon Pumpkin Pie spice (home-made!)
1/2 teaspoon Espresso powder
1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
3/4 cup packed light brown sugar
3/4 cup granulated sugar + extra for sprinkling


Directions:
Preheat oven to 400 F.  
In the bowl of an electric mixer, combine pumpkin and sour cream.  Add the eggs and butter and combine. 
In another bowl, add the flour, baking powder, salt and sugars, and whisk to combine.  Add to the pumpkin mixture.  
Divide the batter in half.  In one half of the batter, add the pumpkin pie spice.  In the other half, add the espresso powder.  Or, if you want an entire batch of 1 variety, simply double the amount of that spice and omit the other.  
Put in standard sized cupcake tins lined with cupcake liners.  Sprinkle the tops with granulated sugar.  
Bake for 14 - 17 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center comes out clean.  Serve warm!

Oops! Who ate those?

Visit the other Club Baked bakers to see how their Pumpkin muffins came out!  I can't wait to see how the savory version tastes - I was too scared to try it!  

Club: BAKED - NY Style Crumb Cake

I got hooked on BAKED: New Frontiers in Baking when I made my first recipe from the book in November 2008.  Their Brownies quickly became my favorite, and that's saying quite a bit as I've made about one and a half gajillion different brownie recipes.  So when several members of Sweet Melissa Sundays mentioned they were started a Club: BAKED baking group based around the book Baked Explorations: Classic American Desserts Reinvented, I jumped at the opportunity.  I know I'm going to love the recipes we make from the book and I'll find many new favorites.

The first recipe up in our schedule is NY Style Crumb Cake.  This is a great way to start off this group!  I'm a native New Yorker and have tasted quite a few crumb cakes.  And big buttery cinnamon-sugary crumb topping is one of my favorite things in the world.  Rather than make the full batch, since I'm baking up other things for Fourth of July in the very near future, I decided to half the recipe and make it in a cupcake tin.  This method yielded 12 individual Crumb Cakes.  Besides halving, and substituting (1/2 Cup granulated sugar + 1 Tablespoon molasses) for the Dark Brown Sugar, I made the recipe exactly as it appears in the book.  I haven't tried one yet, so I can't report on their taste!  But from the looks of them, I think they're a winner!  I'll come back here with an update once they've been sampled.  :)

I'm excited to be baking in this new group!  Make sure to visit our site to see the other bakers' versions of this classic dessert.  Visit Karen's Cookies Cakes and More for the recipe.  Thanks for hosting, Karen (and picking such an awesome recipe to start off with)!

Banana Bran Muffins

Banana Bran muffins??  A healthy recipe?!  Has this blog been taken over by a health nut?  Nope.  But now that I'm leaving early for work, I wanted to make something I could quickly grab on my way out the door to hold me over until lunch.  Store bought breakfast bars were getting old.  These came out quite good, but their shelf life is rather short.  I made these Thursday night and by Tuesday morning when I opened the airtight container, out came a spoiled smell.  So if you plan on making them and you don't feel like eating 12 muffins in a few short days, bring them to work and share with your co-workers!  I made them in a standard cupcake/muffin pan, but if they had been prepared in a jumbo muffin pan, the recipe probably would have only yielded around 6.  A much easier number of muffins to eat in a few days! :)  


Banana Bran Muffins, adapted from Food 4 Thought
Ingredients:

1 1/4 cup all purpose flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 tsp salt

1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup bran flakes
1 cup low-fat milk
2 medium ripe bananas, mashed
1 egg, lightly beaten
2.5 Tablespoons butter, softened
3 Tablespoons packed light brown sugar


Preheat to 350 and line a 12 cup muffin pan with paper liners.
In a  medium bowl, combine flour, cinnamon, baking powder and salt.  Whisk to combine and set aside.
In a separate bowl, combine the bran flakes, milk and mashed bananas.  Stir well and let rest 5 minutes. 
In a measuring cup, combine the egg, butter and brown sugar.  Add the banana mixture and mix just until mixture is smooth.  Add this to the flour mixture and stir to combine. Divide between 12 wells in the cupcake pan. 
Bake for 18-20 minutes or until golden brown.  Allow to cool 5 minutes before removing from the muffin pan to a wire rack to cool.

Sweet Melissa Sundays: Sweet Chai Muffins

I don't normally drastically alter a recipe, especially not the first time I'm using it. Sometimes I'll make fairly minor substitutions or combine parts from different recipes, but I don't generally change a recipe all that much the first time around. This weekend for Sweet Melissa Sundays, however, I seem to have changed that a little bit.. partially on purpose and partially by accident. Chaya of Sweet & Savory, our host this week, chose Orange Blueberry Muffins with Pecan Crumble from the Sweet Melissa book. While I am an enormous blueberry fan (there was a long period of time where I literally ate them every single day), the fiance is not, and on top of that, I didn't have enough time to go get blueberries. Plus, neither of us are really in to Orange in our sweets. But I really wanted to make more of Melissa's muffins! We loveddd the Pear Cranberry Muffins with Gingersnap Crumble, and unfortunately I didn't have a chance to make either the Fresh Peach Muffins or the Carmalized Onion, Sage, and Chedder Muffin when they came up (both of which I had really wanted to make!).

Rather than forgo SMS this week, I changed up the recipe a bit so that it was something I already had all the ingredients for and that the fiance would enjoy. I started with Melissa's Sweet Muffin base recipe (p.5-6). After reading everyone's notes on the SMS site, I heeded their advice and cut back on the dry ingredients and upped the liquid a wee bit. I halved the recipe, so I used 1 1/4 C Flour and 1/4 C heavy cream and 1/4 C milk. Also, I added 3 Tablespoons of Big Train Vanilla Chai:

I had planned on making the Pecan Crumble (everyone on the boards raved about them!). But it turns out I had used all of my pecans up and had none left. So, I just went with a cinnamon+brown sugar+granulated sugar topping.



The end result was great. A nice light breakfast muffin. The chai flavor was subtle but there - the spice was not overpowering at all. Cinnamon-sugar sprinkled on top added a nice crunch. And I think the more liquid, less flour change to the recipe was necessary. These muffins came out a little crumbly, but not too heavy or dry. This recipe is definitely a keeper.



Check out Chaya's blog for the recipe for Orange Blueberry Muffins with Pecan Crumble! And see the SMS blogroll to see how the recipe came out for everyone else (maybe theirs actually had orange, blueberry, and pecan like it was supposed to!).

Banana Muffins with Gingersnap Crumble, and Brown Sugar Cinnamon Filling

I really don't like throwing away over-ripe bananas. I try to avoid it whenever possible. Usually, that means Banana Bread from my Grammy's trusted recipe. But this time when faced with two nearly black bananas sitting on the counter top, I made something a little more creative. How do Banana Muffins, with a Brown Sugar Cinnamon Filling, and a Gingersnap Cookie Crumble sound?? Yeah, sounds pretty good to me too.



First, I made Grammy's Banana Bread recipe, typed out just the way she explained it to me when I asked her for the recipe:

Ingredients:
2 very ripe bananas, really mashed & set aside
1 stick of butter, melt in small sauce pan & set aside
1 1/2 C all purpose flour
3/4 C Sugar
2 eggs
1/4 C milk
2 tsp lemon juice
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt



G's directions:
In a shaker container with cover, shake eggs, milk & lemon juice.

Use largw mixing bowl. Add flour, sugar, salt & baking soda. Mix lightly.

Add milk, egg, lemon juice mixture. Stir with wooden spoon. Then add mashed bananas and stir. Lastly add melted butter and mix completely (not too much).

I used this batter to fill a cupcake pan up about 1/2 way, like so:


Then, I topped it with a generous portion of Brown Sugar Cinnamon Filling:
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
 mixed together with 4 tablespoons brown sugar
Like-a this:


Then, I topped them off with a bit more batter, and as much Gingersnap Cookie Crumble I could fit on there (See THIS post and the Sweet Melissa Baking book for the crumble recipe).

And voila:



(note the jealous pup in the background).

The muffins came out great. Very moist and delicious like banana bread, with the added taste of gingersnaps and brown-sugary-cinnamony filling. All reviewers agreed: Yum. I definitely recommend you try these out.

SMS: Pear Muffins with Gingersnap Crumble

Typical Sunday morning... when it first started. I woke up far too early and was unable to go back to sleep, Daniel and the dog were still sound asleep and cuddling, so I came downstairs to start baking. After my dry ingredients were mixed together and set aside, and the pears were diced.... we got the phone call that we had to leave. Why? Because we went to the hospital to go welcome our new nephew into the world!!!!!! Baby boy is beautiful and healthy and mommy is doing well. It is a very exciting day here in this family!!!!!!!!!!!!

So muffins seem a little boring in comparison! But I'll post them anyway. :)
I made the muffins exactly as the recipe says, minus the cranberries (we just were not feeling it). I cheated and bought pre-made old-fashioned gingersnap cookies at the store. The only change I made to the crumble was to omit the extra ground ginger - my gingersnap cookies were gingery enough.



The muffins are excellent. And the crumble is extra excellent. In fact, I think it is now currently my favorite crumble recipe. It's going to be my go-to recipe for crumble for a while (maybe with a little bit of cinnamon mixed in).



Thanks to Jennifer of Maple N’ Cornbread for choosing this week's treat and posting the recipe on her blog!!! Make sure you visit the rest of the Sweet Melissa Bakers to see how their muffins came out.

SMS - Eep! And Strawberry Shortcake Crumb Muffin Recipe

I'm glad that SMS is not very demanding and only requires you to, at a minimum, participate once a month. Unfortunately, this will be my first time not participating for two weeks straight! I know, I'm terrible! I'll be up and running again soon, I promise. I haven't forgotten about you SMS, life is just getting in the way right now! For now, I leave you with a recipe I promised you a long time ago, that a reader just reminded me I never posted (Thanks, Linda!)

Way back when I was entering my muffin recipe into the Mimi's Cafe contest, I promised that I'd post the recipe I came up with in the future. Well, here it is - sorry it took so long, it completely escaped my mind!

Strawberry Shortcake Crumb Muffins

Ingredients:
1 3/4 C all purpose flour
1/4 C cornstarch
1/2 C sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 C buttermilk
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla
1/4 C butter, melted
10 strawberries, washed, dried & sliced

3/4 stick unsalted butter, melted
1/4 C packed light brown sugar
1/4 C granulated white sugar
1/4 tsp cinnamon
1 C + 1 tblspn flour (+extra if needed)

Muffins:
1. Grease & flour a standard muffin/cupcake pan. Preheat the oven to 425F.
2. Whisk together flour, cornstarch, sugar, baking powder & salt, & set aside. In another small bowl combine the melted butter, buttermilk, vanilla & beaten egg. Stir in to the flour mixture. Stir just to incorporate, do not overmix - it will be lumpy.
3. Pour into the muffin pan, filling each cup about 2/3 full. Gently insert the strawberry slices into the batter so that they are vertical (they will stand up and down in the batter).
Sprinkle with crumb topping.
4. Bake 15 - 18 minutes, or until the crumb topping is browned, and a toothpick inserted into the muffin comes out clean with only moist crumbs.

Crumb:
1. Whisk together the butter, sugars, cinnamon and salt until smooth.
2. Stir in the flour with a whisk, then stir with a butter knife to create the crumbly texture. Add more flour as needed to create the correct crumb size.
3. Sprinkle on to muffin tops - crumb topping with dry up and crisp in the oven.

Sweet Melissa Sundays #7: Guinness Gingerbread; and Strawberry Contest Muffins

Guiness Gingerbread, aka Rootbeer Gingerbread

The Sweet Melissa Sundays baking group this week baked up Melissa Murphy's Guinness Gingerbread (p. 12 - 13). It was chosen by the fabulous Katie of Katiecakes. One thing I love about this group is that it gets me to bake things I would normally probably never choose on my own. This recipe was a lot of fun.

I made a few changes to the recipe. Since we aren't really drinkers in our house and I didn't want to be left with a ton of Guinness stout, I used IBC Rootbeer in place of the Guinness beer called for in the recipe. I also substituted maple syrup where the recipe called for Molasses as past recipes have taught me I'm really not in to the taste of molasses. Light brown sugar went in instead of dark because that is all I had, and similarly I used black pepper instead of the ground white pepper the book uses because I didn't have any white. I used my little Baking Bible book and this new fantastic website I found, Cook's Thesaurus to find out that white pepper is basically just a milder less flavorful version of its darker counterpart. So, rather than the 1/4 tsp white pepper the recipe calls for, I used just a light sprinkling of black pepper. Annddd I baked it in a cupcake pan rather than the 9 x 9 x 2 baking dish because I like the ease of give-away-ability that cupcakes allow. Other than that, I followed the recipe. :)

I thought it would make about 9 cupcakes, so I greased & floured 9 wells of a cupcake pan. I soon learned it makes MORE than that, about DOUBLE my estimate to be exact, so I called for help from Daniel who came to the rescue with cupcake liners.





Melissa Murphy says it is best served warm with freshly whipped cream dolloped on top. Well, it is Sunday morning, and I didn't think ahead enough to make whipped cream first. And I really wanted to taste it warm like she said. So we made due with some Ready Whip.







It was very nice! I am sure it would have been even tastier with homemade whipped cream, but even with the store bought stuff it was quite good. With my light brown sugar and my maple syrup substitutions, the result was a mild, subtle flavored cake. I look forward to enjoying the rest of the cupcakes room temperature with frosting on top!

Now, to decide which frosting to use... Rootbeer frosting? Regular ol' buttercream with caramel drizzle (Dan's choice)? We shall see!

*Update* Root Beer Frostingish/Glaze Topping



1 3/4 C confectioners sugar
1/2 stick, unsalted butter, softened
1/4 tsp. vanilla extract
4 Tbs. root beer

Add butter to mixing bowl. Gradually add confectioners sugar to the butter & cream together until well mixed. Add the vanilla and mix until incorporated. Add the root beer. To get the correct consistency, add more root beer or sugar to reach desired adjust thickness. Mine came out somewhere between Glaze & Frosting, but piled on nicely!




Strawberry Shortcake Crumb Muffins



I've also been baking up some other things. Mimi's cafe held a Meaningful Muffin Search contest to find their new Seasonal Muffin Recipe. The amazing Gale Gand is one of the judges, and prizes include $1,000 gift cards to Mimi's, your muffin on the menu, a cookbook signed by Ms. Gand, and $1 from each winning Meaningful Muffin sold will go to "Share Our Strength". I thought, WHY NOT, might as well try and enter, right?? If I don't win, I still got to eat some muffins!

I designed a Strawberry Shortcake Crumb muffin. I thought Strawberries were a good place to start, since the contest was to design their seasonal muffin, and I added a nice crumb topping because, well, everyone likes a good crumb topping.









Recipe to follow soon! Be sure to see how the Guinness Gingerbread came out for the other SMS Bakers!

Individual Mini Coffee Cakes

Coffee cake. Delicious, simple, a classic. I love coffee cake, Daniel loves coffee cake. I wonder why I hadn't made it in so long! I had some time on my hands to kill the other morning, so I decided to make some so Dan could bring them to work for breakfast. I'm so nice, right? I had a recipe that I made quite a bit a few years ago, but since I like trying new ones out, I searched Food Network and Epicurious for a Coffee Cake recipe with a high rating and tons of good reviews. Finally I came across this one and decided to go with it. I only made minor changes, included leaving out the jammy swirl (sometimes, you shouldn't mess with a classic) and baking it in a cupcake pan to make little individual Coffee Cupcakes instead of one big one. Perfect for grab-and-go with your coffee in the morning!

They came out wonderful. The crumby topping, Dan's favorite part, was perfect. And the cake was moist, and not too sweet - perfect for first thing in the A.M. A definite would-make-again. Below is the recipe with my alterations.



Individual Mini Coffee Cakes from Epicurious
Cake Ingredients
1 C flour
1/2 C Sugar
1 3/4 Tsp baking powder
3/4 stick salted butter, melted
Pinch of salt (if using unsalted butter, up this to 1/4 tsp)
1/2 C Milk
1 large egg, room temperature

Crumb Topping Ingredients
3/4 stick salted butter, melted
1/4 C packed dark brown sugar
1/4 C granulated sugar
3/4 tsp cinnamon
1 C + 1 tablespoon flour (+ extra if needed)
Cinnamon Sugar

Cake:
Preheat oven to 390. Put paper liners in 11 cupcake wells in a cupcake pan.
Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, and salt.
Whisk together butter, milk, and egg in a large bowl. When combined, whisk in flour mixture until just combined - batter will be lumpy. Pour batter into the liners of a cupcake pan until ~ 2/3 - 1/2 full.

Crumbies:
Whisk together butter, sugars, cinnamon, and salt until smooth.
Stir in flour with whisk, then stir through with a butter knife to create crumbies. Add more flour as needed to get a crumby texture. The crumbs will crisp up and dry out in the oven. Sprinkle crumbs over top of mini cakes, and LOAD 'EM UP - the crumbs are the best part! Sprinkle cinnamon sugar over the top of the crumbs and the top of the muffins/cakes.

Bake cake until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean, ~ 17 - 22 minutes. Cool in pan on a wire rack 5 minutes, then remove the cupcakes from the pan and let cool completely on the wire rack.

Whole Wheat Carrot No-Raisin Muffins

I hate seeing food thrown out. I just feel wasteful when I have to throw something away because it has gone bad. Rather than let that happen with my left over ricotta cheese, I decided to use it in a recipe that Daniel could eat for breakfast. I searched for a muffin recipe that used ricotta, but couldn't find anything that didn't require lemon juice or zest. When I came across a recipe for Whole Wheat Carrot raisin muffins, I remembered the long-ignored whole wheat flour in the pantry, and the left over carrots from the soup I made two days ago. Perfect! Except this recipe didn't call for ricotta... nor did I have a few other things on the list of ingredients. Instead of hopping in the car and driving the .2 miles from here to the grocery store, I decided to manipulate the original recipe to fit what I had on hand. Daniel doesn't love raisins, I left them out. I substituted my ricotta where the recipe called for yogurt (and since I only had half of the amount they called for, I halved the recipe). I had no honey, no lemon juice. So basically... here is what I did instead... something rather different.



Whole Wheat Carrot No-Raisin Muffins
1 C Whole Wheat Flour
1 tsp baking soda
1 tsp cinnamon
1/4 tsp salt
1 egg
1/2 C Light Maple Syrup (instead of honey...I looked this one up, apparently this is a normal susbtitute)
1/2 C Ricotta cheese (instead of Yogurt)
1/4 C olive oil
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp Key lime juice (hey, it was all I had)
5/8 C shredded carrots, lightly packed
Plus, I added 1/4 C sugar because 1 reviewer said it needed more

Sift together the dry ingredients in one bowl.
In another bowl, mix the egg, syrup, ricotta cheese, oil, lime juice & vanilla.
Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients - don't over mix. Fold in carrots.
Fill paper-lined or greased cupcake tins to 2/3 full and bake at 350 for ~ 17-18 minutes, or until toothpick comes out with just a few crumbs on it. Cool 5 minutes before removing from pans, and finish cooling on wire rack.
If desired, spread a little melted butter on the tops and sprinkle a bit of cinnamon sugar on the tops.

They came out super moist, and not too sweet - definitely a good breakfast treat.

Doughins? Muffnuts?

I really wanted to make baked doughnuts, so I searched and searched for a recipe. I generally like to stick with recipes either from a book I own, or a website that has people rate the recipes so I can see what potential they have. All of the ones I found either had no ratings, or were not baked but fried. I found this recipe for "French Breakfast Puffs" on Allrecipes.com and though its not called a doughnut, the common consensus on the reviews/ratings section was that it tasted like a baked cake doughnut. Most people seemed to be pleased with it, so I decided to give it a try.

1/3 c. Shortening
1 c. sugar
1 egg
1.5 c. all purpose flour
1.5 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/2 c. milk
1 tsp ground cinnamon
6 Tablespoons butter, melted (but I only used 3 and had much left over!!)

In a mixing bowl, beat shortening, 1/2 c of the sugar, and the egg until smooth.
In another bowl, combine flour, nutmeg, baking powder and salt. Add this to the sugar mixture alternately with milk.
Fill greased muffin tins 2/3 full and bake at 350 for 20 minutes, or until toothpick comes out clear. I made mine in little star shaped tins, and some in muffin tins, but since mine were smaller, I only baked them 15 minutes. Cool 5 minutes, then remove from pan.
In the meantime, combine cinnamon and the other half cup of sugar. Melt the butter. Their recipe says to roll the warm puffs in butter, then in cinnamon sugar, but I took a pastry brush and brushed the tops with butter, then rolled them in the cinnamon sugar. I didn't like the idea of submerging them in melted butter.


Even though I didn't drown them in butter, they were very good. A little on the dry side, but very good (Dan ate 5 of them). The cinnamon sugar topping is essential. Next time, I would maybe add a thin glaze to the top.


Yey, first time using the star tin!! My chubby little star shaped puffs.

DoughnutMuffin

DoughnutMuffin
Originally uploaded by icecreamb4dinner

Finally back in baking mode. These were baked on Sunday, but I haven't had time to post since then. Since then, we've also made some chocolate chip cookies, so I'll try to post that on here, too. There was a while there were I was far too busy to do anything baking related, but I have managed to find a wee bit of baking time in between studying for exams and doing papers. This time, we decided to go with yet another King Arthur Flour recipe, since we are a little in love with them at the moment. This recipe... ehhhh. Some people said they tasted doughnut, others didn't get it at all. Also, ours came out a wee bit on the dry side, but when they are warmed up a second before eating them, they taste much better. The topping K.A. says to go with is a sprinkling of cinnamon sugar on top of melted butter. But this didn't really do it for me. I think these would be WAY better with a simple glaze or icing on top, like a...doughnut. Plus, it would help with the dry factor. Perhaps we'll try that next time.
Overall these are a nice little not-so-sweet breakfast muffin.
What I do recommend is listening to them when they say to spray your muffin liners. I had never heard of doing that before, and didn't, but after we peeled the first muffin from its paper I could see why you need to. They get a bit stuck to the paper if you don't.

Doughnut Muffins from King Arthur Flour
the World Wide Web.

Batter
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter
3/4 cup sugar
2 large eggs
2 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour or King Arthur White Whole Wheat Flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/4 cups milk

Topping
3 tablespoons butter, melted*
4 teaspoons cinnamon-sugar*

*These amounts are the "greater amounts" K.A. called for if you want an "extra sugary top" but I couldn't find enough surface area on these muffins top to fit all that on there!

Preheat the oven to 425°F. Line a muffin tin with 12 paper or silicone muffin cups (we did Cupcake sized muffins and made about 18 or so), and grease the cups with non-stick vegetable oil spray; this will ensure that they peel off the muffins nicely.

In a medium-sized mixing bowl, cream together the butter and sugar till smooth. Add the eggs, beating for several minutes and scraping the bowl, till the mixture is smooth and light colored. Beat in the baking powder, nutmeg, salt, and vanilla.

Stir the flour into the butter mixture alternately with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour and making sure everything is thoroughly combined. Spoon the batter evenly into 12 lightly greased muffin cups.

Bake the muffins for 20 minutes, or until they're a pale golden brown. Remove them from the oven, and let them cool for a couple of minutes, or until you can handle them. While they're cooling, melt the butter (this is easily done in the microwave).

Use a pastry brush to paint the top of each muffin with the butter, then sprinkle with the cinnamon-sugar. Repeat the process, if desired. Allow the muffins to cool on a rack.