Cinnamon Sugar Breakfast Puffs

 

These Cinnamon Sugar Breakfast Puffs, my friends, are aahh-dict-ive little buggers.  Wow, they are bananas.  SO good.

And then, what’s better than an addictively tasty lil’ cinnamon sugar puffy muffin?  That these are the simplest little buggers to make too.  Stir, bake, roll, and eat.  Anyone can make these.  Today.  Make them today.  You’ll see.  Simple.

I first made these this past Thanksgiving eve and ah, I don’t know what took me so long to try them out.  So glad you’re here, blog, thank you for the opportunity to bake all the recipes!

Anything cinnamon, cinnamon sugar, I’m a total sucker for.  Every time.  “Oh, it has cinnamon in it?”  Saved.

Saved from Food52 in fact, a reliable source for recipes of all kinds in fact again.

Our neighbors Anne and Renee invited us over Thanksgiving eve to hang out, have a spot of wine, some snacks, loads of laughs.  And how on earth could we say no!  We can’t.

As a thank you for the invitation, I brought them some of these sweet puffs thinking they’d be a nice way to wake up, minimizing breakfast prep on a big food prep day, hoping they’d help ease any wine fuzzies the next morning.  After eating one myself that next day, I’m thinkin’ they were lucky to get any at all, they were that tasty.  

Sure, the original recipe says to eat them warm, fresh out of the oven but I found them to be quite fantastic the next day, and the day after, and the day after.  I suppose I’d be terrified to try one warm and fresh as I’d end up permanently in the kitchen baking these nonstop.  Ugh, I’m dying for one right now…

Tellin’ ya, obsession worthy.

Oh, but you can pop them in the microwave for about ten seconds to warm them back up, bring back some of the original fresh-baked fluffy interior.  Or eat them room temp, who cares, just get them into your face!

And yeah, it’s true, these are more like muffins really and it seems there are bazillions of versions of these out on them there interwebs as I seem to have several of said versions.  Hm.  I’ll have to keep exploring out of curiosity, boo hoo!

French breakfast muffins, French breakfast puffs, doughnut muffins, just to name a few of their aka’s.

And seriously, they are jaw-droppingly simple to make.

The most difficult part of this recipe?  Browning up some butter in a saucepan. Which isn’t difficult at all.  So when that’s ready, pour that nutty goodness into your mixer bowl* and let it cool completely.  Go run some errands, chip some tile out of a leaky shower, ya know, fill your time.  You could skip the browning but trust me, depth of flavor is always always worth a few extra minutes.

Browned butter with all its browned butter bits.

Once that’s cooled and you still haven’t found the shower leak, pour in the sugar, add the egg, and beat those together until they are gorgeously light yellow and fluffy.  I mean, is there a better color in the world?  Probably not.

Soo pretty, yeah?!  Those lil’ browned butter bits speckled about.

While that’s creaming, bring together your dry ingredients in a bowl and fluff them with a fork.  I skip the zest called for originally, but that’s just me.

Ok, time warp, out of order from my own instructions, whoops.

Ok!  Next, alternate dry with the milk into the mixer bowl while on low, beginning with flour, until everyone’s all in and things are mostly combined.

Take the bowl off, give a few big sweeping stirs by hand with a nonstick spatula* to finish blending and make sure everything’s up off the bottom.

Just turned the mixer off here, ready for those big final stirs by hand.  Yes, it’s a thick batter.

Split the batter between the twelve wells of a muffin tin which has been greased and floured, or use baking spray,* or just get this pan* instead (smashing success this pan has been, fyi).  (And no, you don’t want to use paper liners here as you need the cutie muffins to be paper-free.)  Use a soup spoon and scoop in less than you think as the batter doesn’t fill the wells very much, barely halfway.  A mounded scoop per well, then split the rest.

Yeah, see, they barely fill the wells so don’t freak out.

All righty!  Into the oven and soon, wow, your house is going to smell aaaahhh-mazing.  Oh!  Oh!!

About halfway through, melt the remaining butter in a bowl then toss together the cinnamon and sugar into another.  I have a big shaker container filled with C&S, of course, so I just use that.

Take the pan out of the oven when they’re a wee bit golden, you’ll definitely smell that they’re ready, let them sit a minute or two then dump them out onto a cooling rack.
 

Probably coulda gone a wee longer in the ol’ oven but they smelled done.

One by one roll them around in the butter bowl then roll them around in the cinnamon sugar bowl and set on the cooling rack to cool.  Or not.

Don’t forget to lick the buttery cinnamon sugar off your fingers too.

Awww drat, one of them has been split open…Oh.  Dear me.  Oops.

Ok.  Whoops. (Not really.)

I mean, for real.  You can’t blame me.

So for science, or uh, for the blog, uhhh, oh! for you, I did it for you….I ate one fresh and warm.  Yeahhhhhh….be careful with that, very very careful, as I actually ended up eating two for uh, science.  You.

Holy craaaaap were they gloriously soft and cloud-like and deeeelicious.  With melted buttery cinnamon-y sugar goodness and a lightly crispy crust and all and ohhh….ok.

Yuuuuuummmyyyy.

Make these, you soooo will not be sorry.

Note:  This content originally appeared on Flaky Bakers.

Cinnamon Sugar Breakfast Puffs

Yield

12 puffs

Prep time

25 Min

Cook time

25 Min

Total time

50 Min

Fabulously delicious doughnutty-like muffin breakfast puffs dotted with fragrant spices, butter dipped, and rolled in cinnamon sugar.

Ingredients

• 1/3 cup (38 g) unsalted butter
• 1/2 cup (99 g) granulated sugar
• 1 large egg, room temperature
• 1 1/2 cups (180 g) all-purpose flour
• 1 1/2 teaspoons (6 g) baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon (3 g) fine sea salt
• 1/4 teaspoon (0.65 g) ground nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon (0.475 g) ground allspice
• 1 pinch ground cloves
• 1 pinch ground ginger
• 1 teaspoon (2 g) orange zest or lemon, optional
• 1/2 cup (118 ml) whole milk, room temperature
• 6 tablespoons (85 g) butter, melted
• 1/2 cup (99 g) granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon (2.6 g) ground cinnamon

Instructions

1. In a saucepan over medium to medium-high heat, melt the 1/3 cup of butter, swirling occasionally until it has browned and is nutty smelling. Pour the butter into the mixer bowl and let cool to room temp.
2. Begin preheating the oven to 350° F (176° C) and prepare a 12 well muffin tin by greasing and flouring with a light hand. Alternately, spray with baking spray that contains flour or use a thoroughly nonstick pan.
3. Once the butter has cooled, add the sugar and egg then beat until it’s a pale yellow and super creamy, around 3-5 minutes.
4. While the mixer is creaming, assemble the dry ingredients in a bowl including the zest if using. After the butter mix is well creamed, set the mixer to low, add a third of the dry ingredients, then half the milk, alternating between the two and blend until just mixed. Give a few final stirs with a spatula by hand.
5. Using a soup spoon, split the batter between the muffin tin wells and bake for about 20-25 minutes, until the puffs are lightly golden. About halfway through baking, melt the remaining butter then add the cinnamon and sugar to separate bowl, stirring to combine.
6. Let the puffs cool slightly then turn them out onto a cooling rack. Roll each puff in the melted butter then roll each one in the cinnamon sugar mix, setting them on the cooling rack to cool.
7. Serve warm immediately or store in a sealed container and serve at room temperature or reheat briefly to serve.

Notes:

Adapted from Food52.

Nutrition Facts

Calories

232.63

Fat (grams)

11.75

Sat. Fat (grams)

7.16

Carbs (grams)

30.21

Fiber (grams)

0.78

Net carbs

29.43

Sugar (grams)

17.39

Protein (grams)

2.67

Sodium (milligrams)

206.40

Cholesterol (grams)

45.20

Please see the "info" section for nutrition and gram weight details.

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