Cinnamon Muffins

So I have this friend. She really, really doesn't like cinnamon. And like a good friend, instead of accepting her as she is, I decided to tweak a vanilla muffin recipe into this one until she did.
I find that cinnamon tends to dry out my muffins when I usually bake regular ones so be assured that this recipe is still nice and moist and most importantly- delicate.

Yields: 10 large muffins


Ingredients

1. 1 cup of All-Purpose Flour
2. 90 g Sugar*
3. 1 tsp Baking Powder
4. 1/4 tsp Salt
5. 3/4 tsp Ground Cinnamon (You can be brave and add a whole tsp.. if you're into cinnamon and find it taxing to measure 3/4 tsp)
6. 1/2 cup of Milk (room temperature)
7. 1/2 tsp Vanilla Essence
8. 1/4 cup of (softened) Unsalted Butter**
9. 1 egg (room temperature)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC.
2. Take a large mixing bowl and sift the all-purpose flour in first.
3. Add the sugar, baking powder, salt and the cinnamon. Mix.
4. Create a crater in the centre of the dry ingredients for the ease of combining them with the wet ingredients.
5. Add the vanilla essence to the milk.
6. With a (balloon or electric) whisk in your dominant hand, slowly add the vanilla-milk to the centre of the bowl as you whisk it in. By doing this part gradually, you ensure that there are no lumps.
7. When the vanilla-milk is entirely mixed in, add the softened butter and also whisk it in. 
8. The mixture looks almost done, this is when I like adding my egg in. Adding the egg(s) in last became a habit because I kept forgetting them and would only remember when I run through my mental checklist.
9. Whisk the batter to get to a ribbon-like consistency that has no lumps or clumps.
10. Line the muffin/cupcake moulds with paper liners. Unless you are using silicone moulds.
11. Put them in the oven at 180ºC for 13-16 minutes.
12. Check whether they are done by inserting a skewer or toothpick in and pulling it out. If it comes out clean, they are done.
13. Keep them to cool on a wire rack.
14. Et voilà! You're done!

Garnish/Serving Tips & Tricks

• I personally don't do anything to these muffins after. Sometimes, just for the heck of it, I add a few drops of food colouring to make the seem funky, but that's about it.
• If you are feeling extra, you can brush on some melted butter on top when they are almost cool and sprinkle some cinnamon sugar on them. Or finely chopped walnuts. The butter will help them stick.
• You can make them cinnamon-ier by sprinkling some more when the batter is already all whisked and you've tasted it to make sure that's what you want.
• I find that the depth of flavour is further enhanced when I add about 1/4 tsp 5 spice powder to the batter. This is also a technically unnecessary step that you can do if you have the spice mix lying around in your pantry... It's along the lines of- if you add it, it's great, but if you don't, it's not a problem either.

*You can add more sugar if you like yours sweeter- I prefer compensating with a icing instead.
**If you find softened butter to be too difficult to work with, you can melt it first but it cannot be hot that that would end up cooking the egg when it is added.