Small batch coffee cake muffins (and other things)

I have been having a great time baking and cooking from Christina Lane's books and website, Dessert for Two.  You might know that I favor small-batch baking; it meshes well for our family of 3 and lets me bake and cook (i.e., have fun) more often.  It took me a while to discover Christina but it's certainly better late than never!  I love her signature small-batch recipes and I've had a lot of delicious success with them.

I know I can't (or shouldn't) post every one of the recipes I've tried but I had to post this one for a small-batch of 4 coffee cake muffins.  They were just glorious!  Plus, I always feel the need to give muffins some love and attention every once in a while because they are just so darn lovable.

These coffee cake muffins have crumb topping not only on top of them but also a bit tucked in the center...because if you're going to eat coffee cake or crumb cake, you want plenty of those sweet crunchy crumbs! 

I whipped the batter up one morning by hand (many of Christina's recipes use a handheld mixer and since I don't have one, I've found they can easily be done by hand with a whisk or a wooden spoon given a little patience) and had these 4 muffins fresh for breakfast.  I was impressed by how nicely risen they turned out, with a sturdy firm cake lightly infused with cinnamon and nutmeg, anchoring all the delicious sweet crumbly goodness.

Some mornings call for a muffin, or two.  Next time you feel like indulging in a sweet treat for breakfast, this is a great way to do that with a little restraint.  After all, it's only 4 muffins...but I think they're 4 fabulous ones!

Super-streusel muffins

The combination of a snow day and the presence of extra sour cream in the refrigerator can be a dangerous thing.  It can lead to the making of decadent treats. For me, it led to the making of these "super-streusel" muffins a couple of weeks ago.

I think our winter started off pretty calmly...after last year's relentlessly long winter and countless snow storms, I initially thought that maybe we would be lucky this year.  Looking at it now, it seems we just had a late start!  We've had our share of snow, a couple of snow days/school closings, and in general, it has been extremely cold and icy out.  All that said, I'm really grateful we haven't had issues with power outages like we did a couple of years ago.  It's hard to complain when you're warm and toasty in your own home.

The cold leads me - and keeps me - in the kitchen, and it seems to be making us hungry all the time!  During a snow day, we seem to be doing the following on repeat: cook-eat-shovel.  I can barely keep up with my fellas' appetites!  But with all the calories we're burning from snow-shoveling, I think we can handle some hearty meals and a few sweet treats.  

And these muffins were one of the sweet treats I baked during the last snow day.  I had leftover sour cream after making the mini chocolate bundt cakes.  Since sour cream always makes me think of coffee cakes, it's no surprise I ended up here with what I'm calling "super-streusel" muffins.  I call them that because these muffins are loaded with streusel/crumb topping - the ratio of muffin to streusel topping is almost 1 to 1.  No one's going to complain about insufficient streusel here!

This recipe I used was intended for large, or jumbo, muffins.  Since I don't have a jumbo muffin tin, I improvised.  I used my regular-size muffin tin and set tall paper baking cups within the openings.  This gave me the height I needed to imbed all that streusel-goodness within.  I bought these paper cups eons ago (they must have been on sale) and I'm happy I finally had a reason to use them.  Alternatively, you could buy and use similar tall parchment cups or make your own!

Instead of following the recipe and doing a layering of streusel in the middle of the muffins and then placing more on top (which would work better if you had the jumbo tin), I kept all the streusel on top of the muffin batter.  To get it all on there, I lightly pressed some of the streusel on top of the batter first and then topped them off with more.

The cake itself is super moist and fluffy, the topping is simply sweet and crunchy. Frankly, these muffins have many of the elements that provide you with an express route to goodness in baked goods: butter, sugar, sour cream...It's full-on muffin indulgence for a snow day!

Hazelnut marble coffee cake

When I go to the big bookstore (you know the one since there are so few nowadays), I'm always drawn to the magazine racks and to the cooking magazines.  These days, aside from the usual monthly issues, there are all these special edition magazines featuring everything from seasonal cooking/baking to one-pot meals.  I'll find myself flipping through these mini cookbooks and with all the great photography, everything looks delicious.  Every once in a while though, for whatever reasons, something especially calls out to me.  This hazelnut marble coffee cake did that the other day and I just wanted to make it. 

I wasn't really sure what it was that made me want to make this little cake so much.  I supposed we simply like what we like, and this cake has a lot of the characteristics that I like in a cake.  I'm a big fan of basic cakes that don't need frosting; I love hazelnuts and anything with chocolate (the duo/marbled layers really appealed to me).  I've also realized that old-fashioned coffee cakes need to make a serious come back and that crumb toppings are something to swoon over.  

As it turns out, this was also something of a light recipe - another thing that appealed to me because ideally, I'm looking for tasty, balanced, treats I can enjoy everyday.  But I have to admit I started second-guessing my decision to try this out when I looked deeper...I started thinking: "Really?  Just 1 tablespoon of butter (never mind that the original recipe uses vegetable oil spread) for the crumb topping?  Light sour cream, 7 tablespoons of water and just 3 tablespoons of canola oil in the cake?" Is that going to taste good?

I decided to go for it and give it a try.  The recipe left some room for interpretation as far as using other types of flours and even sugar substitutes.  I stuck with the framework of the recipe but used a tablespoon of butter (as opposed to oil spread) for the topping, an actual egg (instead of egg product, which I've never bought) in the cake, and I choose to substitute half the all-purpose flour with whole wheat pastry flour.  A little extra vanilla extract worked out well, too.

I really wasn't sure this coffee cake would taste as appealing as it looked in the magazine but the good news is it was very good!  The cake is moist and tender, and you can taste the cocoa of the top layer. That really makes a difference, adding some dimension and giving you the feeling that you're eating some hybrid between coffee cake and a marble loaf or light pound cake.  Though the cake itself isn't very flavorful, it goes nicely with the strong flavor of the crumb topping.

The hazelnuts in the topping packs a punch of flavor.  If you're not a fan of hazelnut, I see no reason not to substitute with something else like walnuts or almonds.  For me, the hazelnuts work really well with the cocoa layer and gives you a ton of flavor in the topping.  And speaking of the crumb topping, I found that just one tablespoon of butter and 1 tablespoon of brown sugar does get the job done here! If you are feeling generous (or a little greedy), I wouldn't discourage anyone from making a bit more topping to go on top of this coffee cake.  Thanks to those flavorful, toasted hazelnuts though, I think it works just as it is.

All you need is a cup of coffee...