Chai Streusel Muffins

As an Amazon Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases. Read the full disclosure here.

Buttery, brown sugar muffins spiced with cardamom and topped with a chai spiced streusel give a whole new dimension to your morning muffin.

Chai Spiced Muffins: Buttery, brown sugar muffins spiced with cardamom and topped with a chai spiced streusel give a whole new dimension to your morning muffin.

Muffin recipe #10 of 12! Seriously, 2018. Where are you going? Just this week, I was so confused as to how something I had dated at work as 7/17/17 could have possibly happened, because I was on maternity leave.

Nope. I wasn’t.

That was 7/17/18 that I was home with a toddler and newborn. In July 2017, my toddler wasn’t even walking yet.

Save This Recipe form

WANT TO SAVE THIS RECIPE?

Enter your email below & we'll send it straight to your inbox. Plus you’ll get great new recipes from us every week!

That could be #mombrain, but I think it’s also #wheredidyougo2018.

So. Here we go. Recipe #10 in our 12 recipe series: Muffin of The Month!

Chai Spiced Muffins: Buttery, brown sugar muffins spiced with cardamom and topped with a chai spiced streusel give a whole new dimension to your morning muffin.

If you haven’t noticed by now, I am a big huge fan of reinventing the wheel, especially when it comes to baking. If something works, and works well, why change it?

You’ve seen me do this so many times.

Taking my white layer cake and turning it into a patriotic bundt cake and then a funfetti version
Turning my red velvet cupcakes into a spooky black velvet layer cake
De-spicyfying my chocolate cayenne cookies and filling them with white chocolate chunks
Seriously, the lists around here are endless.

And today is no different.

Today, we’re changing oneeeee little thing about my coffee cake muffins from a couple months ago. That recipe stemmed from my cinnamon streusel coffee cake recipe, so this is the 3rd time you’re seeing this same basic recipe.

And, if I’m being completely honest, I’m sure it won’t be the last. It’s just such a great go-to!

Chai Spiced Muffins: Buttery, brown sugar muffins spiced with cardamom and topped with a chai spiced streusel give a whole new dimension to your morning muffin.

We’re spicing things up (literally) with chai spices, a combination I’ve used so many times before on FAF. My personal fav? These chai spiced oatmeal cookies. Oh! And these baked chai donuts. And chai spiced granola. Ok, and then one more… Chai cake with spiced cream cheese frosting. Really, just give me all of the chai.

So what makes chai spiced chai spiced? Cardamom. The BEST spice, in my opinion, to ever exist. I love it so much that I dedicated an entire recipe to it– cardamom rolls are my mom’s recipe from forever and they appeared my blog back in 2014 when I was first getting started with blogging.

So don’t judge the pictures too hard. I’ve come a long way…

These chai muffins are exactly the same as my coffee cake muffins, but with the addition of cardamom and ginger in both the streusel and the muffin itself. The flavor is subtle, but it’s there.

Juuuuust enough to give these muffins a spicy contrast to classic cinnamon coffee cake. The perfect pairing with a cup of coffee or tea, and the very best way to breakfast splurge in the colder weather that has graced us lately.

Chai Spiced Muffins: Buttery, brown sugar muffins spiced with cardamom and topped with a chai spiced streusel give a whole new dimension to your morning muffin.

Plus, I mean, there is streusel. Who doesn’t love streusel?! Good thing November’s Muffin of The Month includes some streusel too, because it’s never a bad day when that stuff is involved.

This recipe makes a manageable 9 muffins, so if you’re feeling saucy and extra spicy, double it up and go for a dozen and a half. Nobody in your house will be mad about that one, I promise!

Chai Spiced Muffins: Buttery, brown sugar muffins spiced with cardamom and topped with a chai spiced streusel give a whole new dimension to your morning muffin.

So let’s cheers our chai muffins to October and the fact that, while we loveeeee pumpkin around here, fall is all about spices of different kinds, and cardamom, we adore ya.

Chai Streusel Muffins

Buttery, brown sugar muffins spiced with cardamom and topped with a chai spiced streusel give a whole new dimension to your morning muffin.
Prep Time10 minutes
Bake Time19 minutes
Total Time29 minutes
Recipe Author Lynn April
Servings: 9 muffins

Ingredients

CHAI SPICED STREUSEL

  • ¼ cup all-purpose flour be sure to measure properly
  • 2 Tablespoons brown sugar firmly packed (light or dark)
  • ¾ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
  • teaspoon kosher salt
  • 2 Tablespoons cold unsalted butter cut into pieces

MUFFINS

  • 1 and 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
  • ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cardamom
  • 1/4 teaspoon ground ginger
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • ¼ teaspoon baking soda
  • ¼ teaspoon kosher salt
  • 6 tablespoons unsalted butter softened to room temperature
  • ½ cup brown sugar firmly packed (light or dark)
  • ¼ cup granulated sugar
  • 2 large eggs room temperature*
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
  • ½ cup Greek yogurt plain or vanilla, any fat content-- you may also use sour cream

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 400ºF.
  • Spray 9 wells of a 12 count muffin pan with non-stick spray or line with cupcake liners. Set aside.

CHAI SPICED STREUSEL

  • Place flour, brown sugar, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, salt, and butter into a small bowl.
  • Using a fork, press ingredients together until butter is in small chunks. Use your fingers to pinch pieces together until streusel is mostly small crumbles. Some large crumbles are ok. Set aside.

MUFFINS

  • In a medium size bowl, toss together the flour, cinnamon, cardamom, ginger, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Set aside.
  • In a large bowl with a handheld mixer or the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugars until light and fluffy. Add the eggs one at a time, beating on medium speed after each until combined. Add the vanilla and the yogurt and beat again on medium speed until completely incorporated.
  • Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir gently with a spatula until no flour pockets remain.
  • Spoon the batter evenly into the prepared wells. I like to use an ice cream scoop with a thumb trigger. Sprinkle a heaping Tablespoon of the streusel topping on each pile of batter. Bake the muffins for 5 minutes, then without opening the oven door, reduce the temperature to 350ºF and bake for another 13-14 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
  • Remove from oven and allow muffins to cool in the pan at least 10 minutes before transferring to a wire rack to cool completely. Leftovers can be kept covered tightly at room temperature up to 5 days or in the refrigerator up to one week. Muffins freeze well, up to 2 months. Thaw in fridge overnight or heat up in microwave for 15 seconds on high.

Notes

*It is always a good rule of thumb to use room temperature ingredients when using room temperature butter. To bring eggs to room temperature quickly, place in a bowl of warm water for 10 minutes.
Did you make this recipe?Mention @freshaprilflours on Instagram or tag #freshaprilflours!

Nutrition Disclosure

All nutritional values are approximate and provided to the reader as a courtesy. Changing ingredients and/or quantities will alter the estimated nutritional calculations.

 

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Recipe Rating




This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

2 Comments