My mom had a cupboard in the kitchen containing a few old cookbooks that she rarely used. As a child, I used to enjoy perusing them and looking at the baked treats. Some of the cookbooks were so old, they had black and white photos or even just drawings of the food. The ones with drawings interested me because they depicted smiling children enjoying the treats.
When I started learning to bake, I found a recipe for French Breakfast Puffs in one of those old books. The title sounded so fancy, but they were really just simple muffins dunked in butter and rolled in cinnamon sugar. I have no idea what the name of the cookbook was or what happened to it, but the delicious muffin recipe stuck around for a while. I’ve tweaked the recipe so many times over the years, and most recently, I added pumpkin to it. These Pumpkin Cinnamon Mini Muffins are one of the best versions I’ve created. The inside texture of the muffins is soft and moist and it contrasts nicely with the slight crunch you get from the cinnamon sugar on the outside. They look so cute too, like little pumpkins, and they definitely make children smile!
To watch the TikTok video of these mini muffins being made, click here.
| Servings |
mini muffins
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- 1 1/2 cups (191g) all purpose flour, sifted
- 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1/2 teaspoon fine sea salt
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg, preferably freshly ground
- 1/2 cup (100g) granulated sugar
- 1/3 cup (80ml) vegetable oil or neutral oil of your choice
- 1 large egg
- 1/2 cup (113g) canned pure pumpkin purée Not pie filling
- 2/3 cup (132g) granulated sugar
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 6 tablespoons (85g) melted butter
Ingredients
Muffins
Topping
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- Preheat the oven to 350ºF (180ºC). Grease and flour a 24-serving mini muffin pan.* Do not use muffin liners. (The muffins need to form an outer crust. This prevents them from absorbing too much melted butter later in the recipe.)
- In a medium-size bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, ginger and nutmeg until well combined.
- In a large bowl, whisk together the sugar, oil, egg and pumpkin purée until smooth and well combined. Stir in the flour mixture just until combined. The batter will be thick.
- Transfer the batter to the prepared pan, filling the muffin cups about 2/3 full.
- Bake until toothpick inserted into the muffins comes out clean, about 10-13 minutes. Do not over bake! Be diligent, since over baking can happen very quickly with mini muffins.
- Let the muffins cool in pan for 5 minutes. Turn the muffins out and place on a cooling rack.
- Whisk the sugar and cinnamon together in a shallow bowl until well combined.
- Briefly dunk the warm muffins in melted butter, then roll in cinnamon sugar.
To find the mini muffin pan I used, click here.