coffee cake muffins

Above is the picture of a half-eaten coffee cake muffin. I'd like to tell you that I purposefully photographed a cross-section of the muffin because I wanted to show the cool layer of streusel but the truth is I forgot to take a picture before I took a bite out of it. I could've unpapered a second muffin so I could photograph an intact muffin, but if I did that, then I'd have to eat it, and if you had any idea how much butter was in one of these babies you'd understand why that wasn't advisable.

My boys (the young ones and the one that's a bit older) are going skiing tomorrow and I spent the day baking up goodies for them to take along for the ride. I baked C.'s signature chocolate chip muffins and whipped up some coffee cake muffins for the chocolate-chip-muffin-weary. I love coffee cake, but I'm especially fond of muffins (see the Irish Soda Bread Muffins post), and while I would never buy coffee cake muffins (primarily because of their fat content), I am more than happy to clog my arteries with the homemade version. I found this recipe in The America's Test Kitchen Family Baking Book. I think I should've baked them sans paper wrappers as instructed, because when I removed the finished muffins from the pan, I was left with pools of melted butter where the muffins had been. The streusel also stuck a bit to the paper, but not badly. So I'm going to have pack the guys some wet wipes, but ooh, are they good...