Cinnamon Muffins

A few years ago my mom and I spent some time in Portland Maine  as well as Nova Scotia and New Brunswick Canada with some family friends. We had a blast, It was such a lovely area.

My friend and I posing for a photo in our room at a cute bed and breakfast in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

We were in Portland for about 3 days, and each morning we would go to an indoor market (I’m not sure exactly what it’s called, maybe someone knows?) And one bakery there made these delicious cinnamon muffins. They weren’t just normal cinnamon muffins however- they had little clusters of cinnamon sugar inside them. Unfortunately, this bakery only made 3 of these muffins every day, so we couldn’t stock up. I’ve been searching high and low for a way to recreate these muffins, and I’ve come pretty close, but their not exactly the same. So if anyone knows the secret- please let me know!

After years of looking up how to make these, I found these in a King Arthur catalogue:

Yes, I know what you’re thinking. It kind of looks like dog food. But it’s not. They’re cinnamon flav-r-bites. And they are delicious. 

And as luck would have it, they had a cinnamon muffin recipe on the back! Well actually, it was a cinnamon apple muffin recipe, but I left the apples out trying to recreate my favorite cinnamon muffin. But I’m sure throwing the apple in would be delicious as well.

I’ve slightly altered the recipe to make it dairy-free. The recipe originally called for one cup of buttermilk, but I’ve replaced it with one cup soy milk and a teaspoon of vinegar.  It’s a similar buttermilk solution to my Strawberry Kiwi Cupcakes recipe. And I’ve also used Earth Balance (Or Futter (=fake butter) as we call it in my house)  instead of regular butter, but feel free to use what you like.

Cinnamon Muffins
1 cup all-purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup unsalted butter (or futter)
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
1 large egg
1 cup soy milk
1 teaspoon vinegar
3/4 cup cinnamon flav-r-bites
Optional: 1 apple, peeled, cored, and chopped

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees F, and prepare your muffin tin with liners.

Add the vinegar to the milk and let sit for a few minutes allowing it to curdle.

Beat the butter with sugars until fluffy. Add the egg and mix well, stopping to scrape the bowl along the way. Add the curdled milk and mix well.

Add the dry ingredients, and once they are incorporated add the cinnamon bits and apple, if using.

Portion into muffin tins, It should make 12 muffins. Put them in the oven and bake for 10 minutes, then reduce the heat of the oven to 400 degrees. Bake for 10 more minutes.

Don’t be too worried if they get dark, the brown sugar and wheat flour make them dark naturally.

These really turned out to be excellent muffins. I’m excited to use this as a base recipe and play around with the flavors. It’s not an extremely powerful cinnamon flavor either, my brother  isn’t a huge fan of cinnamon and he loved these. If you wanted a more pronounced cinnamon flavor, try adding some powdered cinnamon in with the dry ingredients.

And if anyone has any idea what cinnamon sugar clusters the bakery in Maine used, please let me know!