Coffeehouse Coffee Cake Muffins

These muffins are to die for!

The entire muffin, not just the tops.

When I saw these come out of the oven, I immediately thought of the Seinfeld episode with Elaine and the muffin tops. So big, so crumbly, so good!

But don't throw the stump away on these babies, no way! Every single bite, every crumb is wonderful. Moist, full of flavor.
There are a few steps to make these but it still only took about 15 minutes to put them together and then pop them in the oven.

The original recipe combined everything in a food processor. I don't have one of those, just my handy dandy little chopper. But this recipe comes together so easily with a few bowls, a pastry blender and a spatula. 

Coffeehouse Coffee Cake Muffins
adapted from Alexandra's Kitchen

1/2 cup finely chopped pecans
1/4 cup brown sugar
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
10 tablespoons butter, divided
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup sour cream
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease or line 12 muffin cups. Combine pecans, brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl, set aside.

In a large bowl combine flour, sugar and salt. Just give it a little stir with your spoon or spatula.

Take 8 tablespoons of your butter, slice into small pieces and drop into flour. Using pastry blender, mix butter into the flour until butter is small and crumbly.

It only takes a minute or two.

Remove 1 cup of flour mixture and add it to brown sugar mixture

Stir with a fork to blend and add in remaining 2 tablespoons of butter, you can melt the butter or just soften it in the microwave (this is what I did) creating a nice crumb streusel topping. Remove 3/4 cup of streusel and set aside.

Add baking powder and baking soda to remaining flour mixture.

Combine egg, sour cream and vanilla till well blended and creamy. I did this in the 2 cup measuring cup I used to measure my sour cream. Less dishes to wash up.

Add sour cream mixture to flour mixture and stir just till all combined and moist. Batter will look lumpy. Sometimes lumps are good. This is one of those times.

Now add the 3/4 cup of streusel topping to your batter, just fold it in so it's evenly distributed.

Spoon batter evenly into muffin tins.

Now start topping with the streusel. You'll need to press the streusel into the batter a bit to keep it all in.

Place in oven and bake for 18-25 minutes. Start checking at 18 minutes by inserting a toothpick, the only thing that should be on the toothpick might me some of the crumb topping. Mine took about 22 minutes.

Remove from oven and let cool for 5 minutes before removing to wire racks.

I used the tip of a spoon and they popped right out.

These were so gooooooooood! I ate one still warm, tried it with a little butter smeared on. Heavenly!

One is enough for most people but I found myself grabbing a second one about and hour after the first. And I wasn't the only one...
It was hard trying to save some for the next day's breakfast. Good thing they're not hard to make.

These would also be perfect for a bake sale! A plastic bag and a little twine.

I've linked up at these great parties Mrs. Fox's Sweets, Rock N Share, This Chick Cooks, Wednesday Wowsers, Cast Party Wednesday, Midweek Fiesta, Newlywed's Blog, Tastetastic Thursday, Full Plate Thursday, It's a Keeper Thursday, Thursday's Treasures, My Favorite things, What's new Wednesday

I always find the best ideas at parties.