Coffee Cake Muffins with Crunchy Almond Topping

A couple weekends ago Mr. Surly made a comment on how coffee cake sounded good. On weekends he likes sweets that compliment his coffee. I haven't had coffee cake in years, so I set out to make some. I knew I wanted them in cupcake form for perfect individual portions. I went onto Tasty Kitchen to view some recipes. I finally settled on this recipe as a base; of course I had to make my own tweaks.

I wanted to make a crunchy nut topping. I figured a few oxalates from the almonds wouldn't hurt me. I would rather have used walnuts instead of almonds, but I didn't have any. Without the nut topping these would have been a good low oxalate treat.

I messed up the recipe a bit, you were supposed to reserve some of the filling and use it as the topping. But my medicated brain missed that step--ooops. It didn't matter though, I made my own topping and got a few extra cupcakes from the batter.

These were delightful. A perfect accompaniment to Mr.Surly's coffee and my cappuccino. These did not last long. I think they only lasted 2 days. Which is good, since I have a list of other sweets I want to make.



Coffee Cake Muffins with Crunchy Almond Topping
Printer-friendly recipe
makes about 9 muffins

for the cupcakes:
1 ¼ c flour
¼ c + 2 Tbl sugar
½ c brown sugar
~½ tsp nutmeg
1 tsp cinnamon
½ tsp salt
¼ c + 2 Tbl applesauce (or oil)
½ c buttermilk
½ tsp baking soda
½ tsp baking powder
½ tsp apple cider vinegar (or white)
½ tsp vanilla

for the crunchy nut topping:
1.5 oz whole almonds (~ 1/3 c)
1 tsp cinnamon
1 Tbl flaxseed oil (or melted butter)
2 Tbl brown sugar


Preheat oven to 350 F

make the muffins:
Sift together flour, both sugars, spices and salt in mixing bowl. Add applesauce, buttermilk and baking soda. Whisk or mix well. Add baking powder, vinegar, and vanilla. Mix well.

make the topping
Finely chop or pulse in food processor a few times. Add other ingredients and stir.

Fill greased or papered muffing wells almost to the top. Sprinkle topping over muffin batter. Let it sit on top, not sink in.



Bake 20 minutes or until inserted pick comes out clean.

Cool on wire rack.



Source: halved and adapted from Tasty Kitchen