Allspice Crumb Muffins

So I am on vacation this week and on Sunday night I went over to a friends house to hang out and do a little baking. Decided I was gonna do some muffins that looked yummy from my new cookbook which btw is Baking From My Home to Yours by Dorie Greenspan. They looked pretty yummy from the pic and I haven't made muffins in years so I gave 'em a shot. These muffins have a streusel on top of them which I've not done before but was actually pretty easy.


Ingredients:

For the Streusel:
1/4 cup all purpose flour
1/2 cup light brown sugar (packed)
1/2 tsp ground allspice
5 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter
cut into bits

For the muffins:
2 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 Tablespoon baking powder
1/2 tsp ground allspice
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 cup light brown sugar (packed)
1 stick (8 tablespoons) unsalted butter melted & cooled
2 large eggs
3/4 cup whole milk
1/4 tsp pure vanilla extract




For the streusel:
Mix all ingredients except the butter in a bowl and lightly sift though them with your fingers to blend. Then add in the bits of cold butter and toss them in to get them covered with the dry ingredients. Work it with your fingers breaking the butter up into smaller clumps. Set aside in the refrigerator for now. According to the recipe the crumbs can be held for up to 3 days ahead of time. And honestly for the amount of flour and such I'd probably make it with more butter next time. Maybe go with 6 tablespoons instead of 5. I would have this time around but unfortunately was short on butter.


For the muffins:
Whisk together the flour, sugar, baking powder, allspice & salt in a large bowl. Then stir in the brown sugar making sure there are no lumps. In a separate container whisk the melted butter, eggs, milk & vanilla extract until well combined. Pour the liquid ingredients over the dry and gently but quickly stir together, you can use a whisk or a rubber spatula to combine the ingredients. The batter will be lump don't worry about it that's the way it should be.

At this point you get to fill your muffin pan. I just sprayed mine with some pam didn't use muffin cups or anything else. They came out pretty easy. This recipe makes EXACTLY 12 muffins. I've honestly never seen such an exact division in all the years I've been baking muffins. Whether from scratch or from a box mix. Then once you've divided the batter get your streusel from your fridge. For this to make sure you divide it evenly I'd start by adding just a little bit to each muffin then keep dividing till it's gone. I didn't do that and my first muffin had plenty of streusel the last one not so much. Use your fingertips to gently press the crumbs into the batter.

Bake at 375 for about 20 minutes or until the tops are golden brown and test done with a knife or toothpick.

I didn't die over these muffins. My friends who's house I was baking at really did enjoy them. They weren't bad. I think part of it was that, as I said earlier, I didn't have much butter and actually had to use margarine. I'll probably try them again with all butter this time and more butter for the streusel. I had some strawberry butter on them and that was really good. I left the muffins at my friends house they said they had them the next morning along with some store bought cinnamon buns. They even said that having the cinnamon roll after the allspice muffins made the store bought roll taste better. So that I think is a good thing yes?

All in all a very easy recipe to do and I give it a thumbs up not my favorite thing but not bad.