Sunday Morning Coffeecake Muffins

I threw these together a few weeks ago when my cousin and her family were visiting from Virginia. *waves at Jessie* She nudged me last night to send her the recipe, so I'm just going to post it here for everyone to enjoy.

Once again, this is from my most trusted source: Cook's Illustrated. Seriously, people, just go buy their books, subscribe to their magazines, or perhaps even better, subscribe to their website. Go. Now.

I just made a batch of these, and they're even better than the first time around. A couple of notes:

• If you make them in a food processor, don't overprocess them - follow the directions. I think maybe that's why this batch came out better than the first.
• You can leave out the pecans - I added an extra 1/4 cup packed brown sugar to make up for some of the volume.
• DO NOT OVERFILL the muffin cups. If you do, it's tough to get them out of the muffin tin intact.

Coffeecake Muffins

Makes 12 (or maybe 14). From Cook's Illustrated, published January 10, 2007.

If you don't have a food processor, first chop the nuts with a knife. Proceed with the recipe, mixing the ingredients in a larger bowl with a wooden spoon or spatula, but use a wire whisk to work the butter into the dry ingredients in step 3.

1/2 cup pecans (may be omitted)
1/4 cup packed dark brown sugar (1/2 cup, if omitting pecans)
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
2 cups unbleached all-purpose flour
1 cup granulated sugar
1 teaspoon salt
8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces and softened
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
3/4 cup sour cream (low-fat may be used)
1 large egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 350F. Grease 12-cup muffin tin and set aside.

Process nuts, brown sugar, and cinnamon in food processor until nuts are the size of sesame seeds, about ten 1-second pulses. Transfer mixture to medium bowl.

Return bowl and metal blade to food processor. Add flour, granulated sugar, and salt, and process until combined, about five 1-second pulses. Sprinkle butter evenly over flour mixture and process until butter is oat-sized, about eight 1-second pulses. Remove 1 cup of flour-butter mixture and stir with fork into reserved brown sugar mixture until combined to make streusel. Set aside 3/4 cup of streusel for muffin batter and remaining portion for topping muffins.

Add baking powder and baking soda to remaining flour mixture in food processor bowl and process until combined, about five 1-second pulses. Whisk together sour cream, egg, and vanilla in small bowl; add to flour mixture. Process until batter is just moistened, about five 1-second pulses. Add 3/4 cup reserved streusel to flour mixture and process until streusel is just distributed throughout batter, about five 1-second pulses.

Divide batter among 12 muffin cups and sprinkle with streusel, pressing lightly so that streusel sinks slightly into batter. Bake until toothpick inserted into center of muffin comes out with several crumbs clinging to it, about 18 minutes, rotating pan from front to back halfway through baking time. Cool in muffin tin on wire rack 2 minutes. Using tip of paring knife, loosen muffins, and gently transfer them to wire rack. Cool five minutes, and serve warm.