These Speculaas Muffins with streusel topping are everything you want on a cold day: moist, soft and full of warm spices. You stir them together in minutes, top them with a crunchy streusel and the oven does the rest. Big, cozy flavor, weeknight effort.
At a glance
⏲️ Prep time: 10 min • 🔥 Bake time: 25 min • 🍽️ Yield: 12 muffins
🥄 Calories: 298 kcal per muffin
⭐ Difficulty: easy
🥘 Main ingredients: self-rising flour, sugar, gingerbread spices, baking powder, milk, butter, eggs, light-brown sugar
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Speculaas Muffins with Crunchy Streusel
As soon as it gets chilly, I'm the person who curls up on the sofa with a blanket, a hot cup of tea… and something speculaas-ish. These muffins are my shortcut version. While the butter cools and the oven preheats, you quickly mix the batter, sprinkle streusel on top and by the time you've tidied the kitchen, the house smells like a bakery.
The first bite is soft and tender, with that gentle speculaas spice mix and little crunchy bits from the streusel. The top has a light crumble, the inside stays moist - and they're just as good warm straight from the tin as they are the next day with coffee.
For more Sinterklaas treats, check all my Sinterklaas recipes.
Why this works
- Two-bowl method: Dry in one bowl, wet in another. Less mixing, lighter muffins.
- Melted butter: Keeps the crumb moist and tender instead of dry and cakey.
- Warm spices: Speculaas spices bring that cozy winter feel without being too heavy.
- Streusel topping: The crunchy, buttery crumb on top makes these feel like bakery muffins.
- No mixer needed: a whisk, two bowls and a muffin tin. That's it.
How Do My Muffins Get Airy?
Firstly, and you're probably going to like this one, don't mix the batter a lot (see, that's less work ;-)). When you overmix the batter, the gluten will be activated and your muffin will become more compact.
A second way is to add butter to your batter. Butter keeps the air bubbles in and makes your muffins moist and airy. Therefore, I've added 3 ½ ounces of melted butter to the batter.
And the final prep is to start with two bowls to prepare your batter. In the first bowl, you add all your solid ingredients. In the second bowl, you add the liquids. Both bowls are mixed well before you pour the liquids with the solids.
What You'll Need
Exact amounts are in the recipe card below.
Ingredients for the streusel
- All-purpose flour: For structure in the crumb topping.
- Light-brown sugar: Adds sweetness and a light caramel note.
- Speculaas spice mix: For a warm, spiced top that matches the muffin. You can prepare Dutch speculaas spice mix easily yourself.
- Butter: Cold and cubed, rubbed into the dry ingredients to make crumbs.
Ingredients for the Speculaas Muffins
- Self-rising flour: Base of the muffin, includes a rising agent. If you don't have self-rising flour, you can use 2 cups of all-purpose flour and a tablespoon of baking powder.
- Sugar + light-brown sugar: White sugar for sweetness, brown sugar for flavor and moisture.
- Speculaas spice mix: Ground spice mix for a gentle, warm holiday flavor. Prepare this speculaas spice mix yourself.
- Milk: Whole milk for moisture and richness.
- Butter: Melted, then cooled so it doesn't cook the eggs.
- Eggs: Bind the batter and help it rise.
- Vanilla extract: Rounds out the flavor. Find your homemade vanille extract recipe here.
How to Prepare It?
You'll find full instructions in the recipe card; here's the short version:
- Step 1: Melt the butter for the batter and let it cool. Stir dry muffin ingredients in one bowl and wet ingredients in a second. Pour wet into dry and mix just until combined.
- Step 2: Cube the streusel butter and chill. Mix flour, sugar and spices for the streusel, then rub in the cold butter and refrigerate.
- Step 3: Divide the batter over a greased muffin tin.
- Step 4: Top with streusel and bake until golden.
Top Tips
- Cool the melted butter: If it's too hot, it can start cooking the eggs and make the batter heavy.
- Don't overmix: A few small lumps in the batter are fine. Overmixing activates gluten and makes the muffins dense.
- Keep streusel cold: Cold butter melts more slowly in the oven, so the topping stays crumbly and crisp.
- Use an ice cream scoop: It's the easiest way to portion the batter evenly into the muffin tin.
- Grease the pan well: You don't have to use paper liners, but make sure the pan is well greased.
- Check doneness with a skewer: A toothpick should come out clean or with just a few moist crumbs.
- Let the baked muffins rest 5 minutes: they firm up slightly and are easier to remove from the pan.
Yes, you can bake them the day before. Store in an airtight container at room temperature and, if you like, warm them briefly before serving.
Yes. You don't have to, since the tin is greased, but liners make cleanup easy and look cute on a brunch table.
Did you make this delicious recipe? Tag #byandreajanssen via Instagram! I love to see what your creation looks like and regularly share the most beautiful photos of you! Did you like this recipe? Then leave a rating on the recipe card! Your feedback helps other home cooks and me enormously.
Need more inspiration?
- You can find video recipes on my YouTube channel.
- And don't forget to save the recipes on Pinterest, so you can easily find them again next time!
📖 Recipe
RECIPE CARD
Recipe Help
Two easy tools to make cooking even easier. Cooking mode keeps the screen on. The easy-step recipe displays the recipe step by step, including the ingredients needed. And you can adjust servings easily
Ingredients
Streusel topping
- ⅔ stick butter
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- ½ cup light brown sugar
- ½ teaspoon speculaas spice mix
Gingerbread muffins
- ¾ stick butter, + 1 tablespoon
- 2 cups self-rising flour
- ½ cup sugar
- ½ teaspoon speculaas spice mix, ground
- ¼ cup light brown sugar
- ¾ cups whole milk
- 2 eggs, size L
- ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
All my recipes are written both in Metric (gram / ml) and US Customary (cups / pounds). Here you can select which type of amount you would like to see.
Instructions
Streusel topping
- Cut the butter for the streusel into ¼ x ¼ inch (½ x ½ cm) cubes and keep it in the fridge until needed.⅔ stick butter
- Make the streusel: put the flour, light-brown sugar and speculaas spices in a bowl and mix well.½ cup all-purpose flour, ½ cup light brown sugar, ½ teaspoon speculaas spice mix
- Add the cold butter cubes and rub them in with your fingertips until you have small crumbs.
- Place the streusel topping in the refrigerator until use.
Gingerbread muffins
- Preheat the oven to
380 °F (conventional oven) or 350 °F (fan oven). - Grease your muffin pan and set it ready.
- Melt the butter and let it cool for 15 minutes.¾ stick butter
- Make the batter: add self-rising flour, sugar, speculaas spices and light-brown sugar to a large bowl and stir well.2 cups self-rising flour, ½ cup sugar, ½ teaspoon speculaas spice mix, ¼ cup light brown sugar
- In a second bowl, mix the milk, melted (cooled) butter, eggs and vanilla extract.¾ cups whole milk, 2 eggs, ¼ teaspoon vanilla extract
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix with a whisk or spatula until just combined. A few small lumps are fine.
- Divide the batter evenly between the cups of the muffin pan.
Bake the muffins
- Sprinkle the cold streusel topping over the muffins and press it lightly into the batter.
- Bake the muffins for about 25 minutes, until golden and cooked through.
- Let the muffins rest in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove and cool further on a wire rack (or enjoy them warm).
Notes
- Room temperature: Store cooled muffins in an airtight container for 2-3 days.
- Freezer: Freeze individually wrapped muffins for up to 2 months.
- Reheating: Warm briefly in the oven or microwave for a "freshly baked" texture.
Nutrition
Carrie says
This recipe looks great- can I ask what type of sugar is required for the 100gram sugar ingredient?
Andréa says
Normal white sugar is fine.