TWD - Allspice Crumb Muffins

This week’s assignment at TWD (Tuesday with Dorie) was Allspice Crumb Muffins. Ahhh, nothing beats a fragrant muffin served warm from the oven.


The baking experience started out well enough, I mixed up the batter and streusel topping.


Then filled my muffin cups, and sprinkled the streusel on top.


I thought there was too much topping for the number of muffins, but I piled it all on anyway. Big mistake. This is how they came out of the oven...


I don’t know what I did wrong. Were my pieces of butter too large? The streusel sorta melted off the muffins and spread across the muffin pan. I had to cut the muffins apart and chisel the extra crispy parts of the streusel off the metal pan. I ate all the crumbs though, they were delicious.

So the Allspice Crumb Muffins were not a total success, but not a total failure. They didn’t look very pretty (not like Dorie’s) but the taste was very nice.




Allspice Crumb Muffins
From Dorie Greenspan's Baking From my Home to Yours

Streusel:
1/2 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1/2 tsp ground allspice
5 tbsp cold unsalted butter, cut into bits

Muffins:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 tbsp baking powder
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup (packed) light brown sugar
1 stick (8 tbsp) unsalted butter, melted and cooled
2 large eggs
3/4 cup whole milk
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
grated zest of 1 lemon (optional)

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
2. Butter or spray the 12 molds in a regular sized muffin tin. Place the muffin pan on a baking sheet.

Streusel:

1. Combine flour, brown sugar, and allspice in a small bowl and sift them through your fingers to blend.
2. Add the bits of cold butter into the dry ingredients and using your finger work the butter into the dry ingredients until the butter is the size of small peas.
3. Place the prepared crumb in the refrigerator to keep the butter cold.

Muffins:

1. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, allspice and salt.
   Stir in the brown sugar, making certain there are no lumps.
2. In another bold whisk the melted butter, eggs, milk and vanilla extract together until well combined.
3. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry ingredients and with a rubber spatula, quickly but gently stir to blend. The batter will be lumpy.
4. Stir in the lemon zest.
5. Divide the batter evenly among the muffin cups.
6. Sprinkle some streusel over each muffin, then use your fingertips to gently press the crumbs into the batter. Note from me: Try to keep the streusel toward the center of the muffin. Don’t pile the streusel near the edge of the pan.
7. Bake for about 20 minutes, or until the tops are golden and a thin knife inserted into the center of the muffins comes out clean.
8. Transfer the pan to a rack and cool for 5 minutes.
9. Carefully remove each muffin from its mold.