One of the biggest hits of last weekend's big breakfast was the coffee cake we served. I did my own riff on a recipe found in a magazine for cinnamon muffins, doubling the cinnamon and adding espresso powder (thank you 'Winger for inadvertently mentioning espresso powder at exactly the right moment). I'm not a big sweets fan but I absolutely LOVED this because it wasn't that sweet, and everybody else (including the sweet tooths) loved it too. Great recipe for fans of the potent Vietnamese cinnamon, though of course any cinnamon will do.
Makes 12 regular (cup cake) sized muffins, 6 large, or an 8" square cake.
For the cake part:
2 cups AP flour
1 cup sugar
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp cinnamon
3 teaspoons espresso powder
2 eggs
2/3 c milk
1/2 cup butter, melted
In a small bowl, combine the dry ingredients. Whisk the egg, milk and butter together; then stir into the dry ingredients until just moistened. Fill greased muffin tins 2/3 full, or use greased 8" cake pan. Sprinkle over topping, below, and bake at 400 F for 15-18 minutes, or closer to 25 minutes if making a cake.
For the topping:
8 tsp AP flour
4 tsp sugar
1/2 tsp cinnamon
4 tsp cold butter
Cut butter into dry ingredient mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs. Sprinkle over battter and bake.
