I discovered French Breakfast Puffs while I was in high school. A friend gave me the recipe and I was hooked. To be honest, all she gave me was a list of ingredients and said, “Put everything in a bowl, stir it together and bake.” That was the way I made these for years.
“French Breakfast Puffs are the very definition of comfort food...a sweet, soft muffin, rolled in melted butter and cinnamon and sugar. Yum.” Kasha
After I learned more about baking, I decided to be a bit more careful about combining the ingredients. I creamed the shortening and sugar together first, then added the egg and vanilla, followed by the dry ingredients. Surprisingly, it didn’t make much difference in the final product. So if you get a craving late at night and don’t want to wait that extra 5 minutes it takes to do all the steps listed, just throw everthing in the mixer and go for it!
(See “The Recipe” section below to make these yourself.)
The specifics
French Breakfast Puffs. This was my favorite midnight snack when I was in high school. My sister and I would often be up all night and now and then we’d get the bright idea to make French Breakfast Puffs. Our parents never got out of bed to ask us what we were doing. They just let us carry on and enjoyed the fruits of our madness the next morning.
Sizes
This recipe will yield 12 regular size muffins or 30 mini-muffins. The mini-muffins are about the size of doughnut holes.
French Breakfast Puffs
Prep Time: 10 minutes • Bake Time: 20-25 minutes
Servings: 12 muffins or 30 mini-muffins
Ingredients
Puffs
⅓ cup (64g) vegetable shortening, room temperature
½ cup (100g) granulated sugar
1 egg
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1½ cups (213g) all-purpose flour
1½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup (4 oz) milk
AFTER BAKING...
6 oz (1½ sticks) butter, melted
1 cup (200g) sugar
1 tablespoon ground cinnamon
Directions
- Preheat oven to 350°F. Grease 12 muffin cups or 30 wells in a mini muffin pan.
- Cream together the shortening and ½ cup sugar.
- Add egg and vanilla and beat well. Set aside.
- Sift together flour, baking powder and salt.
- Add dry ingredients to creamed mixture alternately with milk.
- Divide batter evenly among muffin cups. For the mini-muffins, I used a small cookie scoop. Bake at 350°F for 20-25 minutes, until golden brown and toothpick inserted into middle of cupcake comes out clean. Bake mini-muffins 10-12 minutes.
- While puffs are baking, melt the 6 ounces butter and place ina shallow bowl. Combine 1 cup sugar with the cinnamon and put in separate shallow bowl.
- When puffs are taken from the oven, immediately roll each in the melted butter, then into the sugar-cinnamon mixture. Serve hot or cold.
French Breakfast Puffs: vegetable shortening, sugar, egg, vanilla extract, flour, baking powder, salt, milk
Finishing: butter, sugar, cinnamon
Plate, Box or Bag?
Plate. I place these delicious puffs on a plate and pass them around. Be sure to take one for yourself before you pass the plate or you might not get one.
What I’ve learned...
These doughnut-like French Breakfast Puffs are made with vegetable shortening. Yes, I know that many recipes from years ago have been updated to use butter instead of vegetable shortening, but for this one, I always go with shortening because it makes for a much more tender crumb. You are welcome to substitute butter for the shortening, but since butter has more water in it than shortening, you may want to increase the amount of flour by a couple of tablespoons.
Add new comment