Cinnamon Muffins | Cookies & Cups

By: Shelly
Posted: Jan 6, 2025

These sweet cinnamon muffins are everything I love about a classic cinnamon roll, baked into an easy muffin recipe! They’re complete with an ooey-gooey brown sugar filling, buttery oat streusel, and creamy glaze drizzled over top.

Looking for more sweet breakfast muffins? If you love the cinnamon sugar flavors in this recipe, check out my Snickerdoodle muffins and these actual cinnamon roll muffins, next!

Overhead view of cinnamon muffins on a wire rack drizzled with glaze.

Things to Love About These Cinnamon Muffins

Ah, cinnamon muffins, how I love you. Let us count the ways. This recipe makes big, fluffy breakfast muffins bursting with wholesome oats, chocolate chips, and all the flavors of a freshly baked cinnamon roll. They’re soft and buttery, complete with a gooey cinnamon sugar layer inside. Here’s why they’re a morning treat to have on repeat:

Cinnamon roll-inspired. Whenever I don’t feel up to the task of making classic yeasted cinnamon rolls, these cinnamon muffins are a delicious (and very close) second. They even have that gooey filling I crave in the real thing!
Easy to make. These muffins have a buttery oat topping, cinnamon sugar filling, and the muffin itself (plus a glaze, because I couldn’t resist). The recipe is very beginner-friendly, though, and each step takes just a few minutes.
Baked in 20 minutes. With a quick, 20-minute baking time, these muffins are perfect for a weekend morning. You’ll need to budget another 15-20 minutes of prep time, but you can have soft, fluffy cinnamon muffins ready for the breakfast table in under an hour.

Cinnamon muffin ingredients with text labels over each ingredient. — Muffin ingredients.

Ingredients You’ll Need

Many of the ingredients for the filling, topping, and muffin batter overlap, and almost all of them are pantry staples. Here are some notes to get things started. Scroll down to the printable recipe card for the full ingredients list, amounts, and recipe details.

For the Muffins

Butter – Salted or unsalted, melted in the microwave.
Milk – This can be whole milk, 2%, or any dairy or non-dairy milk you have on hand.
Eggs – You can bring these to room temperature.
Flour – All-purpose flour works perfectly here.
Oats – I recommend using old-fashioned (rolled) oats. Avoid instant oats as they tend to be mushy.
Cornstarch – The secret to extra soft, fluffy, and tender muffins.
Baking Powder and Salt – Be sure to check the dates on your baking powder to ensure it’s not expired.
Spices – Since there’s plenty of cinnamon in the filling, I flavor the muffins with ground nutmeg. You can also use cinnamon here.
Chocolate Chips – I use white chocolate chips, but any kind goes. You can use milk, dark, or semisweet chocolate chips, or leave them out altogether if you prefer.
Streusel – I make a variation of a streusel topping with oats, brown sugar, flour, softened butter, and cinnamon.
Glaze – I finish these cinnamon muffins with a simple (optional) glaze made from powdered sugar, softened butter, and milk.

For the Filling

Butter – Also melted.
Brown Sugar – This can be light brown sugar or dark brown sugar, it’s up to you. Granulated sugar will also work in a pinch.
Cinnamon – Ground cinnamon, or you can use a blend of warm spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, or pumpkin pie spice.

Cinnamon muffins on a wire rack drizzled with glaze.

How to Make Cinnamon Muffins

A few steps are involved in making these cinnamon sugar-filled cinnamon muffins, but don’t worry. All of them are super easy! Follow below and scroll down to the recipe card for the printable instructions.

Oat streusel topping in a glass bowl with a fork. — Make the streusel.

Make the topping. I always start by cutting the softened butter into the ingredients for the streusel topping. Once that’s crumbly, I make the filling.
Prepare the filling. In a separate bowl, mix the ingredients for the cinnamon sugar filling. The consistency should be similar to a wet frosting. Set this aside with the streusel for now.

Dry ingredients added to muffin batter in a large white bowl. — Mix the wet ingredients and add the dry ingredients.

Mix the muffin batter. Next, get out a large bowl and whisk together melted butter, milk, and eggs. Combine the dry ingredients separately, including the chocolate chips. Stir the dry ingredients into the wet batter until it’s just combined.

Cinnamon muffin batter in a lined 12-well muffin pan. — Fill each muffin liner halfway full.

Fill the muffin pan. Divide half the muffin batter evenly between the lined wells of a muffin pan, so each liner is halfway full. Top each muffin with 2 teaspoons of cinnamon filling.

Unbaked cinnamon muffin batter in a 12-well muffin pan. — Add another layer of batter.

Add the topping. Finally, top each muffin with a final layer of batter. Sprinkle the tops of the muffins with the streusel.
Bake. These cinnamon muffins go into the oven at 400ºF for 20-25 minutes, until they’re baked through in the center. Cool the muffins outside of the pan before adding the glaze.
Add the glaze. If you’re finishing off these muffins with a glaze (I mean, why not?), whisk together softened butter with milk and powdered sugar until smooth and lump-free. Drizzle the glaze over the cooled muffins, and enjoy!

Recipe Tips

Preheat the oven. Make sure that your oven is fully preheated to 400ºF before you bake your cinnamon muffins (or any muffins, for that matter). Muffins need high heat to get those tall, beautiful domes just like you see in the bakeries!
Don’t overmix the muffin batter. As is the case with most baked goods, overmixing the batter for these cinnamon muffins will yield dense, tough, chewy muffins instead of light, fluffy ones. Fold the ingredients together gently and be careful not to overwork the batter once you’ve combined the wet and dry ingredients.
Adapt the consistency of the glaze. If you’re glazing your cinnamon muffins, you can add more milk to thin out the glaze, or more powdered sugar to help thicken it.
More add-ins. These muffins are pretty fully loaded as-is, but if you want to, you can substitute the white chocolate chips with different add-ins like blueberries, cranberries, or chopped nuts, like pecans.

A cinnamon muffin cut in half to reveal the cinnamon filling, surrounded by more muffins in the wells of a muffin tin.

How to Store Homemade Muffins

At room temperature. These cinnamon muffins are at their freshest when stored at room temperature for up to 3 days. You can keep them in the fridge, but I suggest taking them out ahead to enjoy them at room temperature.
Freeze. I recommend freezing these cinnamon muffins unglazed. Let the muffins cool completely and store them in a freezer bag or container. Freeze for up to 3 months, and thaw at room temperature for serving.

Description

These soft and fluffy cinnamon muffins are the perfect breakfast treat, with an ooey-gooey brown sugar filling, buttery oat streusel, and creamy glaze!

Streusel Topping:

1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed
1/3 cup old-fashioned oats
1/2 cup all-purpose flour
3 tablespoons butter, room temperature
1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Filling:

3 tablespoon melted butter
1/2 cup light brown sugar
3 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Muffin:

1/2 cup butter, melted
3/4 cup milk
2 large eggs
1 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup old-fashioned oats
2 tablespoons cornstarch
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
optional: 1/2 cup white chocolate chips

Glaze Icing:

1 cup powdered sugar
1 tablespoon butter, room temperature
2 tablespoon milk

Preheat the oven to 400°F. Line a muffin tin with cupcake liners, or spray with cooking spray.
Streusel Topping: Mix all the ingredients with a fork until crumbly. Set aside.
Filling: Mix all the ingredients until the consistency is similar to a loose frosting or pudding. Set aside.
Muffins: In a large bowl whisk together butter, milk, and eggs. In another bowl combine flour, oats, cornstarch, sugar, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and white chocolate chips.
Pour the dry ingredients into the wet and stir until just combined.
Using half the batter, fill each muffin tin with approximately 2 tablespoons of the batter. Then drop 2 teaspoons of filling into each tin. Finish, by dropping another 2 tablespoons of batter on top. Depending on the size of the muffin tin, you may get more than 12 muffins.
Now sprinkle your topping evenly on the muffins (about 1 tablespoon on each).
Bake 20-25 minutes until centers are set.
Cool the muffins on a wire rack.
Glaze Icing: Combine the butter, sugar, and milk, stirring until there are no lumps, adding more powdered sugar or milk until the desired consistency is reached. Drizzle on muffins when ready to serve.
Drizzle with glaze when ready to serve.