Today I had the urge to make something sweet. I don’t have much of a sweet tooth, but every now and then I get the urge for something sticky, sweet, and oh so good. I decided to make a treat for friends at work, sticky muffins.
In reality they should be called sticky cupcakes, but muffin has a more comfort food feel to it! The first step is to slather (for lack of a better term) caramel glaze into a cup cake pan like shown below:
I always keep on hand a container of caramel glaze, as it has multiple uses in my kitchen (sticky nut rolls, caramel butter for whole wheat toast or sour dough pancakes, sticky muffins, etc). Once the pan is glazed up, I chop up ~1/2 cup nuts, today I chose macadamia, and evenly distribute between the glazed cups.
I took a shortcut today with the batter, as I was somewhat time limited. I took a standard boxed cake mix, added a stick of softened butter, ¼ cup vegetable oil, 1 cup water, and 3 eggs and mixed them for three minutes on medium speed with my stand mixer. I then dispensed 2 even scoops of batter into each section. Depending on the cake mix or recipe used, this will yield 18 to 24 sticky muffins.
The muffins bake in an oven pre-heated to 375 degrees for 10-15 minutes, until the middle of each muffin is firm to the touch. Remove from the oven, place a rack on top of muffins and turn out onto a sheet pan lined with parchment.
Allow to cool 10 minutes, then top with choice of sauce, as desired. Allow to finish cooling to room temperature and enjoy!
