Cinnamon Chip Streusel Spiced Yogurt Muffins

Yesterday was a kind of an odd day.  I don't know that I've ever had a day when I've been more excited to clean.  My goodness.  I guess after 3 eight hour days of studying, even cleaning seems like a break.  And I even had a cup of tea in my new mug from CJC!  I have a Scrabble mug now, too!  Just like the one that I got mom for Christmas.  Except with an L.  For lbms, obviously.  

And after cleaning both bathrooms, the kitchen, the floors, dusting and starting the laundry, I decided it was baking time.  

I decided that I wanted to bake something slightly healthier this time.  No baking cakes with a whole pound of butter.  Something nice and healthy.  Like muffins.  Muffins are healthy.  I'll just keep telling myself that.  Especially when there are cinnamon chips involved. And, you know, I added streusel to the top.

I wanted to make them with yogurt, though, so it'd be a littler easier to believe they are healthy.  So I found, well, a few recipes.  And mashed them together.  And threw in extra ingredients here and there.  You know the drill. 

Then there was the applesauce.  The recipe called for applesauce.  And I didn't have applesauce.  I did have an apple.  So, I decided I'd just make some.  We'll just say that the first apple didn't go so well.  I won't go into details.  Just don't try making applesauce in the microwave.  . . . Don't make fun of me.  

So, I went downtown and got two more apples.  I just ate the excess for lunch.  Fresh applesauce.  Mmmmm.  

And I found a pretty drizzle-speckled rose on the way home!  

There is so much cinnamon in these muffins.  That's ok with me!

I love how the "fall spices" (a.k.a. the spices in apple and pumpkin pies) look.  Every time I make granola or anything with these spices, I love how the colors look.  They are all brown, but so subtly different.

I also realized that I have a strange habit of picking the greatest common divisor of the amounts of all the ingredients when I'm picking my measuring cups or spoons.  So, for instance, I'll use a half cup measure 4 times for 2 cups of flour if I need a half cup of something else.  It means less dishes to wash.  Does that make me crazy?  Or just lazy?  

They smelled good.  And they looked good, with all their cinnamon chips and streusel and everything.  

They tasted good too.  Mmmmm.  Except they really didn't taste healthier at all.  They have a little bit of the chewier yogurt muffin texture, but they are pretty overwhelmingly cinnamon chip and that kind of distracts from the healthiness.  Maybe I just can't bake healthy food.  Except granola.  But that's why I push all my baking off on someone else after eating one or two myself!

NES and I also went out to dinner last night.  It was kind of a fancy place, and I'm not sure what exactly I ate, but it was good!  

And then there was soooo much frozen yogurt.  So, so much frozen yogurt.  It was good though.  

Cinnamon Chip Streusel Spiced Yogurt Muffins

Muffins adapted from Taste Space

Streusel adapted from The Lovely Pantry

Muffins:

2 cups of flour

1 cup brown sugar

1 tbsp. baking powder

1/2 tsp. baking soda

1/2 tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

1/2 tsp. allspice

1/2 tsp. ground cloves

3/4 tsp. nutmeg

2 eggs

1 1/4 plain yogurt (I used Greek)

4 tbsp. butter, melted

1/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

1 tsp. vanilla

3/4 cup cinnamon chips

Streusel:

2 tbsp. flour

2 tbsp. brown sugar

1 tbsp. white sugar

2 tsp. cinnamon

2 tbsp. vegetable oil

1 tsp. vanilla

Preheat the oven to 375 degrees.  Line 12-16 muffin cups with liners, and lightly spray the liners with oil spray.  

Mix the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, baking soda, salt, cinnamon, allspice, ground cloves and nutmeg in a large bowl.  Meanwhile, whisk the eggs, yogurt, applesauce and vanilla in a medium bowl.  Add the yogurt mixture into the dry mixture and mix until just combined.  Add the chips and stir until evenly distributed.

Mix all the streusel ingredients in a small bowl until well mixed.

Spoon the batter into muffin liners, filling 2/3 full.  Crumble an even amount of streusel over all the muffins, pressing the crumbs gently into the batter.  

Bake for 18 minutes.  Allow to cool on a wire rack.