Lazy Summer Morning Nectarine Streusel Muffins

A few years ago I started a small catering business, and one of my clients was a coffee shop in Edmond, Oklahoma. Each week they ordered jumbo muffins, jumbo cinnamon rolls, and scones, as well as huge peach or apple cobblers, cherry pies, and cupcakes. My go-to muffin recipe was adapted from Marcy Goldman's Blueberries and Cream Mall Muffins from one of my favorite cookbooks, and it was a winner.

Until 2002, my experience with muffins was Duncan Hines Blueberry Muffin mix. Then one morning I had no muffin mix and tried an Allrecipes muffin recipe and never bought the box again. I do love muffins for breakfast, and this morning I had nectarines begging to be used. I wanted to try something different than my old tried-and-true recipe, so I adapted a peach muffin recipe I found online - it was delicious!

Although I love to eat nectarines out of hand, I think peaches are actually better suited for baking. But nectarines worked in these, and they were moist with little bits of nectarine, tender and tangy from the addition of yogurt, and fragrant with nutmeg and cinnamon - perfect summer comfort food.

You can bet I ate that softly crunchy bit of streusel on the right side first!

This recipe reflects what I had on hand and my preferences for flour (unbleached), coconut oil (unrefined), butter (salted), nutmeg (freshly grated), and baking (convection oven) but they are not requirements for success.  You can view the original recipe and instructions (with much better photos!) here.

Nectarine Streusel Muffins
Adapted from Sally's Baking Addiction

6 tablespoons salted butter, softened
2 tablespoons unrefined coconut oil
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
2 large eggs
1/2 cup vanilla Greek yogurt
3 tablespoons milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
1-3/4 cups unbleached flour
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 peeled and chopped nectarines or peaches

Streusel
2/3 cup unbleached flour
1/3 cup brown sugar
1 tablespoon white sugar
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1/4 cup salted butter

Prepare 12-portion muffin tin with shortening or baking spray. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.

Combine streusel ingredients and cut in butter with pastry blender (or briefly pulse ingredients in food processor) until size of large crumbs. Set aside.

Combine butter, oil, and sugars and mix until smooth. Whisk together eggs, yogurt, milk, and vanilla and add to sugar mixture; mix until well incorporated and smooth. Whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, nutmeg, and salt, and slowly mix into batter. Gently fold in nectarines or peaches. (I did all the mixing by hand because I was too lazy to use the KitchenAid!)

Spoon batter into muffin tin. Sprinkle streusel over top of each muffin. Bake at 375 degrees (I used convection oven) until toothpick inserted in middle comes out with a few crumbs attached - about 20 minutes. Cool in pan 5 minutes; carefully loosen muffins and remove to wire rack.

Cinnamon Streusel Banana Muffins

This is the usual "I had some bananas going bad and I found this on Pinterest" post, so I'll just say that's exactly what happened.

The recipe results in 10 tender, nicely banana-flavored, cinnamon-y muffins with a nice little crunch from the streusel. I only had 2 bananas, so I added a heaping tablespoon of Greek yogurt to sub for that third banana, but I encourage you to make the recipe exactly as written. I still prefer my go-to recipe that I used in my catering business and when I baked for Java Dave's Coffee Shop, but this one is easy, simple, and delicious. I ate two for breakfast and am having to restrain myself from eating another.

The recipe is from blog of Shari, who has prettier photos than mine, so go look.

Cinnamon Streusel Banana Muffins
ever so slightly adapted from the blog of Shari Blogs

1-1/2 cups unbleached flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder
Scant 1/4 teaspoon salt
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 egg, lightly beaten
1/3 cup salted butter, melted and slightly cooled
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon

Streusel:
1/4 cup packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons unbleached flour
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1 tablespoon butter

Preheat oven to 375°. Line 10 muffin cups with muffin liners or lightly grease muffin pan.

In large bowl, whisk together 1-1/2 cups flour, baking soda, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and cinnamon.

In another bowl, beat bananas, sugars, egg, vanilla, and melted butter.

Add banana mixture to flour mixture and blend just until moistened. Divide batter between 10 muffin cups (each cup will be about 1/2 full).

In small bowl, mix streusel ingredients. Cut in butter until the mixture resembles coarse crumbs; sprinkle over muffins. Bake 18-20 minutes (mine were perfect at 18 minutes) or until toothpick inserted in center of muffin comes out clean.

Cinnamon Sugar Bread

Sadly this is the last piece of this wonderful bread. Normally I would toss the last lonely piece of bread, but we are loving it, so it will be breakfast tomorrow. The author of this recipe calls it The Amazing Amish Cinnamon Bread Alternative and likens the flavor to the labor-intensive Amish Friendship Bread.

I found the recipe on Pinterest and decided it would make great breakfast muffins. The recipe makes two loaves, so I made a dozen muffins and a loaf. We loved it both as muffins and as bread. It is moist and tender, not too sweet, and fragrant with the warm spices of winter.

Cinnamon Sugar Bread
Adapted from the original

1 cup salted butter, softened
1-3/4 cups sugar
1/4 cup brown sugar
2 eggs
2 cups buttermilk (I used full-fat)
1 teaspoon vanilla
4 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher flake salt

Cinnamon-sugar topping
2/3 cups sugar
2 teaspoons cinnamon

Prepare muffin tin or loaf pans with baking spray. (I have a lot of "sticking" problems with my loaf pans, so I greased the pan with shortening and laid a strip of parchment in the bottom and up the sides for easier removal.)

Mix together topping ingredients; set aside.

Cream together butter and 2 cups sugar till fluffy; add eggs and vanilla and mix well. Whisk together flour, baking soda, and salt. On low speed add flour mixture alternately with buttermilk just until flour is no longer visible.

For muffins: Fill prepared muffin cups about 2/3 full; sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top. Bake at 350 degrees about 20 minutes or until golden brown. Cool 5 minutes, loosen edges, and cool on wire rack.

For one loaf: Pour 1/2 of batter into prepared loaf pan; sprinkle with half of cinnamon mixture. Add remaining batter, carefully spreading over cinnamon-sugar mixture, and sprinkle with remaining topping. Can swirl with a knife at this point. Bake at 350 degrees for 45-50 min. or until toothpick tester come clean. Cool in pan 20 minutes before removing to wire rack.

For two loaves: Pour 1/4 of batter into each prepared loaf pan; sprinkle with 1/4 of cinnamon mixture. Add half of remaining batter into each, carefully spreading over cinnamon-sugar mixture, and sprinkle half of remaining topping over each. Follow above instructions for baking.

I made a dozen muffins and one loaf of bread. Freezes very well.

Cinnamon Sugar Doughnut Muffins

While searching online for recipes, I found several recipes for donut muffins. I chose one and adapted it and made them for our visiting kids and grand-kids this past weekend, and they could not stop talking about how good they were. And honestly, if I hadn't doubled the recipe, we wouldn't have had enough for the seven of us. The muffins themselves were just perfect - tender texture, not too sweet - and the cinnamon/sugar topping made them really special. I love the addition of nutmeg and used extra in mine. My family was eating these late in the day as well as for breakfast! Seriously, they are that good.

Cinnamon Sugar Doughnut Muffins
24 muffins or 36 mini muffins

Muffins:
3-1/2 cups unbleached flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2/3 cup vegetable oil
1-1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
1-1/2 cups milk

Topping:
1 stick salted butter, melted
1 cup white sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F. Line 12 muffin cups with muffin liners or spray with nonstick cooking spray.

Whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon in large mixing bowl. In small bowl whisk together oil, sugar, eggs and milk. Make well in center of dry ingredients, add liquid ingredients, and stir until just combined. Divide batter equally among prepared muffin cups. Bake until muffin tops are pale golden and springy to touch, 22 to 24 minutes, rotating halfway through baking time. Mini muffins might take less time.

While muffins are baking, combine sugar and cinnamon. Place melted butter in small bowl. When muffins are finished baking, dip tops in melted butter and then into sugar/cinnamon mixture.


I served these with homemade turkey sausage and OJ. This recipe will be a definite repeat at my house.