These delicious muffins are filled with brown sugar, oatmeal, walnuts, and a dash of cinnamon, and drizzled in a heavenly maple syrup glaze.
I mentioned earlier this week that it is cold here in Calgary. COLD cold. So cold there are ice crystals in the sky {and I caught sight of an ice crystal rainbow on Wednesday, talk about beautiful!}
It has been absolutely stunningly beautiful, with the pristine white snow, clear, bright blue skies, and frost…if we have to put up with the snow, at least it is pretty to look at, right?
Well, along with the cold weather comes my desire for comfort food, in the form of soup, stews, pretty much anything warm. But also in the form of muffins, preferably fresh from the oven and with a generous drizzle of maple glaze.
Laughably enough, these muffins started out as healthy muffins. Ha.
They slowly devolved. I swapped out the applesauce for brown sugar. Subbed the Greek yogurt for vegetable oil. Added a crumbly brown sugar and oatmeal crumble. More walnuts. And finally: a sweet, drizzly and absolutely scrumptious maple glaze.
I have completely contradicted myself from this post where I proclaimed myself to be a person who likes her muffins ‘not sweet’.
What can I say? Sometimes a girl needs a sweet-tooth satisfying muffin that has not only a crumbly streusel topping, but also a sweet, drippy glaze. These taste an awful lot like my dad’s favorite oatmeal cookies, and I’m definitely not complaining about that!
They still have oatmeal, and I’m pretty sure that oatmeal cancels out all glaze/crumble calories. Pretttty sure.
What is there to love about these muffins? The maple-walnut flavor combo. To. Die. For. If you haven’t tried this one yet, you are missing out.
The brown sugar-oatmeal combo. It is so delicious in cookies, and absolute perfection in these muffins.
The crumbly brown sugar-oatmeal streusely topping stuff. Whatever you want to call it, it adds the perfect texture to these muffin tops…and even more of that brown sugar-oatmeal yumminess.
The glaze. Pause. Words are difficult. Sweet, moist, drippy mapley glaze. The most important component of these muffins. Promise me you won’t leave it out…promise!! It adds a second dose of maple flavors, and adds even more moisture to these guys.
So, let’s summarize: brown sugar, oatmeal, walnuts, maple, a touch of cinnamon, crumbly topping, sweet drizzled glaze. All together a delicious, sweet, comforting muffin. Perfect cold weather comfort food. You’re going to love them.
- 1½ cups all purpose flour {187g; fluffed, spooned & leveled}
- 1 cup of rolled oats, pulsed in the food processor
- ¼ tsp salt
- 3 tsp baking powder
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ¾ cup packed brown sugar {165g}
- 1 large egg
- 1 cup milk
- ¼ cup vegetable oil
- 1 tbsp maple extract
- 1 cup walnut pieces
- 2 tbsp cold butter, cut into small pieces
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 2 tbsp all purpose flour
- 2 tbsp oats
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 2 tbsp maple syrup
- 1 tbsp milk
- Pre-heat oven to 400°F. Line a standard sized muffin pan with muffin papers. Set aside.
- In a large bowl, combine flour, oats, salt, baking powder and cinnamon.
- In a separate bowl, mix together brown sugar and egg. Add the milk, vegetable oil and maple extract. Mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined. Fold in the walnuts.
- Prepare the crumbly topping: combine all the ingredients and cut the butter in using a pastry tool until coarse and crumbly.
- Fill the muffin papers until ¾ of the way full. Sprinkle a generous spoonful of the crumble topping over top.
- Bake for 8-20 minutes, until a toothpick inserted into the center comes out cleanly.
- Allow to cool 5 minutes in the pan, then transfer to a wire rack to cool completely.
- Combine all ingredients using a hand held beater. Add additional milk until you get the desired consistency.
- Drizzle the glaze over the muffins using a plastic bag or a spoon.
