French Breakfast Puffs

In honor of meeting PW this past weekend, I decided to try another recipe of hers (I had made a big whopping 1 before Monday morning).

So I pulled out The Pioneer Woman Cooks and went to work.  Nice thing is, it didn't make that big of a mess! When I was done, my kitchen was almost as clean as when I started.  However, that's probably not because it was a PW recipe and more because we have company and I tend to be more tiddy when we have house guests.  Whatever it takes.

Oh, and the muffins/puffs were yummy.

The Pioneer Woman's Breakfast Puffs
(full recipe with pics can be found here)

For the muffins:
3 cups flour
1 tbs. baking powder
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
2 eggs
2/3 cup shortening
1 cup milk

For the coating:
2 sticks butter
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tbs. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees and grease a muffin pan (or 2, I needed 2).

Combine dry ingredients (flour, salt, baking power, and nutmeg) in a large bowl.

In a mixer cream together sugar and shortening.  Add eggs and beat again.

Alternating between dry ingredients and milk, add 1/3 of each until everything is well combined.

Fill muffin cups 2/3 of the way full.  I was able to fill 18 cups (PW says 12).

Bake for 20-25 minutes until golden brown. While baking melt butter in a dish and combine sugar and cinnamon in another.

Remove from the oven and coat each muffin in the melted butter then in the cinnamon/sugar mixture.

Serve warm!!

Heads up. These are not super sweet breakfast treat.  More of a subtly sweet.  Perfect start to the morning.  Unless you prefer Pillsbury Cinnamon rolls. And, hey, sometimes we do.

PW says these freeze brilliantly.  We currently have 13 in the freezer.
One more look...

Yum.