Cinnamon Crumb Coffee Cake Muffins

During the Patriots game two weeks ago, Mom and Jesse talked me into baking blueberry muffins.  I have no idea how the idea came up but I agreed, using some of the blueberries Mom had frozen from blueberry picking during the summer.  Then the Pats won, yayyyyy.  Fast forward one week to last weekend's game.  I was at home, happily watching Bring It On on ABC Family (wasn't everyone?) when I got a frantic text from my mother asking me to make muffins again, because the Patriots were losing and she was feeling superstitious.  So, I did.  Alas, even blueberry muffins couldn't pull out the win for them this time.  Sorry, Patriots fans.

Anyway, after Jesse devoured probably a dozen of these muffins over the two batches, he was clearly impressed with my muffin prowess (maybe you remember Muffin Monday?  It was sort of my thing).  He challenged me to make his favorite, coffee cake muffins.  Enter cinnamon crumb coffee cake muffins.  I was actually a bit surprised that I have never made coffee cake muffins, because I went through a pretty intense Drake's Coffee Cake phase in high school.  A quick search on Pinterest led me to these muffins.

Once I had started the recipe, I kind of wished I had tried a different one.  There were typos in it (like it called for pieces of butter, rather than tablespoons, and called for cinnamon in the topping but never specified when to put it in and instead asked for it in the batter) and I was nervous.  Luckily they turned out okay (better than okay... Jesse ate them all, and in not that many sittings).  But, I am not sold that this will be my go to coffee cake muffin recipe.  The crumb topping was good - and luckily it makes up literally about 1/3 of the muffin; in fact, the topping has more flour than all 12 muffins combined - but I thought the muffins themselves weren't as light and fluffy as a good coffee cake should be.  Do you have a favorite coffee cake muffin recipe, and if so, why haven't I tried it yet?

Recipe:

cinnamon crumb coffee cake muffins
from Sugar Apron
yield 12 muffins

Ingredients:
1 1/4 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 tablespoons softened butter
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1 teaspoon vanilla
5 tablespoons yogurt
for crumb topping:
2/3 cup sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
1/2 cup butter, melted
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

Instructions:

1) Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Lightly spray muffin pan with baking spray or use muffin liners.

2) In a medium bowl, whisk together butter, eggs, yogurt, and vanilla.

3) In another mixing bowl, whisk together flour, sugar, baking soda, cinnamon and salt.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir it all together with a wooden spoon, just until combined.  Batter should be lumpy.

4) Scoop the batter into the muffin tin.  It should fill each cup about 3/4 full.

5) To make crumb topping, whisk together granulated sugar, cinnamon, salt and flour.  Add melted butter and stir until it all comes together.  Fluff with a fork to make a mixture that resembles coarse crumbs.  Sprinkle the topping on top of the batter of each muffin.  It may seem like a lot, but use it all!

6) Bake the muffins for 20 minutes or until the toothpick inserted into each muffin comes out clean.  Let muffins cool in the pan 10 minutes, then transfer onto a cooling rack to cool completely.  Store in an airtight container for up to 2 days.