Cinnamon-Sugar Muffins

I found this recipe in the recesses of my hard drive, titled "French Breakfast Muffins." I'm not sure what's French about them, or why they're specifically breakfast muffins, but whatever. They sounded good, so I figured I'd give them a try. These muffins go really fast--from separate ingredients to fresh from the oven in less than an hour. P.S. I forgot to take pictures until they were almost ready to come out of the oven, so this is all you get.

Five tablespoons butter, melted
Half a cup of sugar
One egg, room temperature if you can manage it
One and a half cups of flour
One and a half teaspoons of baking powder
Half a teaspoon of salt
One-quarter teaspoon of nutmeg
Half a cup of milk

Topping
Quarter-cup of sugar
Quarter-cup of butter, melted
One teaspoon of cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350F.

In a medium-large bowl, sift together all dry ingredients. Add wet ingredients and stir until combined, but still a bit lumpy. I expected something like cupcake batter, but what I got was much closer to bread dough. Scoop batter into muffin tins that have been sprayed with cooking spray. You'll be able to get anywhere from 8 to 12 muffins (I got 10). Bake for 20-25 muffins, or until they just start to turn a bit golden at the edges.

For the topping, mix sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl. Place melted butter in another small bowl. Brush the warm muffins with melted butter, then in the cinnamon sugar.

A couple things: you can really taste the nutmeg in these. In fact, if it weren't for the nutmeg, these wouldn't have much of a taste. Also, without the cinnamon-sugar coating, they'd be pretty awful. Next time I make them, I think I'll skip the nutmeg in favor of cinnamon, and add 3/4 cup of sugar instead of half. All in all, however, they're pretty tasty as is.

01.03.2010: I made these again last night, keeping everything the same, but used cake flour instead of regular flour. They were magnificent. So by all means use whatever flour you've got, but know that using cake flour and sifting the ingredients really makes all the difference.

Takes just under an hour
Makes 8-12
Difficulty: 1