These Mini French Breakfast Puffs are soft and fluffy breakfast muffins that are coated in warm, melted butter, then rolled in a sweet cinnamon sugar. They take less than 15 minutes to bake, taste absolutely wonderful, and the perfect go-to, quick breakfast treat!
Table of Contents
About the Recipe
I have a growing number of breakfast sweets here on Beyond the Butter, and next to my chocolate chip sour cream coffee cake and 5 ingredient butterscotch bundt roll recipes, these mini french breakfast puffs are probably the easiest to make!
This recipe yields approximately 18 mini breakfast muffins using a medium size cookie scoop, takes roughly 10-15 minutes to prep, and 13-15 minutes to bake! Fresh and warm from the oven, roll them in the melted butter, coat them with the cinnamon sugar, then enjoy!
That's it—easy peasy!
It's a recipe I got from my Aunt Deb, who got it from her Mom (a.k.a. my Grammy) years ago, and now I'm sharing it with all of you!
One small change I made from my Aunt's recipe—I made these minis because who doesn't like mini treats?
French Breakfast Puffs Ingredients
You'll need the following ingredients to make these miniature size french breakfast puffs:
- All-Purpose Flour
- Baking Powder
- Salt
- Nutmeg. If you don't have nutmeg on hand, you can use cinnamon in it's place.
- Vegetable Shortening. You can use softened, room temperature unsalted butter as a substitute (1:1 ratio).
- Granulated Sugar
- Large-size Egg. Just one is needed, and it's good to have it at room temperature
- Milk. I used 1%, but 2%, whole, and fat free are fine as a substitute.
- Unsalted Butter. Used for rolling the just baked breakfast puffs in.
- Cinnamon + Granulated Sugar. The coating that gets added after you've dipped the muffins in the melted butter
What Baking Tools Are Needed?
To make these mini french breakfast puffs, I recommend using either your hand mixer or your stand mixer to make the muffin batter. You will also need:
- 24-cup mini muffin or cupcake tin
- Flour-based baking spray
- Spatula
- Medium cookie scoop - used to divide the muffin batter into each cavity
- Mixing bowls
Cinnamon Sugar Mix
To make the cinnamon sugar mix that you'll dip the buttery breakfast muffins in, you'll need ½ cup of granulated sugar plus 1 teaspoon of cinnamon.
You can easily double this amount, if needed.
I recommend making more than needed then save it in a container to use for later!
Other Beyond the Butter recipes that use this same cinnamon sugar mix are my chocolate chip sour cream coffee cake and my super easy blueberry bundt cake!
Standard Size French Breakfast Puffs
If you don't have mini muffin tins, you can make make these as regular size breakfast muffins using a standard muffin tin.
The oven temp is the same at 350ºF, but the bake time changes to 23-25 minutes. Fill them ⅔ of the way full which should yield 12 medium-size muffins.
Quick Recipe Tips Before Starting
- This recipe yields approximately 18 mini french breakfast puffs, so you will not use all 24 mini muffin cavities.
- I inverted my just baked breakfast muffins onto a wire cooling rack with a few sheets of paper towels underneath. Then got the melted butter and the cinnamon sugar bowls ready.
- I used my left hand to dip the breakfast muffins into the melted butter. Then I used my right hand to coat them in the cinnamon sugar. You can also use mini tongs to do this or whatever set up works best for you!
- These are best eaten the same day, but also keep well at room temperature in a tightly sealed container for up 2 days. To warm them up, you can reheat them in the microwave for 15 seconds.
More Breakfast Sweets from Beyond the Butter!
- Homemade Sticky Buns from Scratch
- Blueberry Swirl Coffee Cake
- Baked Chocolate Pistachio Donuts
- Chocolate Chip Sour Cream Coffee Cake
Mini French Breakfast Puffs
Author:Ingredients
cinnamon sugar mix
- ½ cup Granulated Sugar
- 1 teaspoon Cinnamon
french breakfast puffs muffin batter
- 1 ½ cups All-Purpose Flour
- 1 ½ teaspoon Baking Powder
- ½ teaspoon Salt
- ¼ teaspoon Nutmeg
- ⅓ cup Vegetable Shortening, room temperature
- ½ cup Granulated Sugar
- 1 Large Egg, room temperature
- ½ cup Milk
- ½ cup Unsalted Butter, melted (for dipping the muffins in after they are baked. DO NOT ADD TO THE BATTER.)
Instructions
- Adjust the oven rack to the 2nd level position (just above center), and preheat the oven to 350ºF. Generously spray a 24 cavity mini muffin pan with a flour-based baking spray.
- To make the cinnamon sugar mix, whisk together the ½ cup of granulated sugar and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon in a small bowl. Set to the side.
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the all-purpose flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Set the dry mixture to the side.
- Using a hand-held mixer or a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat together the vegetable shortening and granulated sugar together on medium-high speed until light and fluffy. Add in the egg and mix until well combined. Scrape down the sides of the bowl as needed.
- Reduce the mixer speed to low, then alternatively add in the milk with the whisked dry mixture. Mix until just combined. The batter will be on the thicker side, but easily scoopable.
- Using a medium-size cookie scoop, evenly divide the batter into the mini muffin cavities.
- Bake for 13-15 minutes at 350ºF or until a light golden brown.
- Immediately roll the breakfast puffs in the melted butter, then coat with the cinnamon sugar mix. Serve and enjoy!
Lenah Al Azzawi says
AMAZING recipe - so simple and so SO yummy. I used almond milk instead of regular milk and it worked just as well! Super fluffy
Jennifer says
So glad you loved them Lenah, thanks!
Tori says
Wow!! So easy to make and so quick, too. All together took about 35-40 minutes. I opted for the bigger ones and it made 12 perfect muffins. Delicious with my coffee 🙂
Jennifer says
Glad the puffs were a hit!
Selin says
The recipe is super easy to follow !
The puffs are really soft, and the taste is super yummy !
Jennifer says
So glad you loved them, thank you!
jennifer says
I found these to be somewhat dense and crumbly - definitely not light and fluffy as stated in recipe. I made the 1x batch size which made 11 "regular" size muffins as I don't have a mini tin. Was tough to tell when they were done - took out about 23min. I added about 2tsp cinnamon to the dough to amp up cinnamon flavor. After took out of tin and dipped in butter, found they crumbled quite a bit in the cinnamon/sugar mixture. Perhaps because they were not minis. Won't be making again.
Jennifer says
Oh that stinks Jennifer, I'm so sorry they didn't turn out as expected. Besides increasing the cinnamon, did you use any substitutes?
Carly says
Can you do this without veg shortening? Would love to have these tomorrow but am lacking that in my kitchen.
Jennifer says
Hi! You can substitute the shortening for butter if you have that!
Tanya says
My mom doesn't eat egg so I substituted that with a teaspoon of baking soda and a tablespoon of white vinegar.
They were absolutely delicious! They were very soft and fluffy!
Thank you so much!
Jamina says
Hi! I don’t have baking spray right now. Can I just use butter to grease the cupcake tin?
Jennifer says
I haven't tried it that way, but yes! You can melt the butter then apply it with a pastry brush!