If you’ve never tried Mimi’s Cafe buttermilk spice muffins, you are truly missing out! In fact, I could almost cry for you! Unfortunately, I am ready to cry for myself after discovering our local Mimi’s has closed for good! Truly, this is a travesty. Luckily, I have found the recipe for these tasty muffins. I am bringing you some buttermilk muffins right to your door Mimi’s Cafe buttermilk spice muffins recipe right to your screen.
I’m calling this a copycat recipe. Technically, it is the recipe, straight from the restaurant chain’s website. I figured if they post it there for all to see, they want us to make these delicious buttermilk muffins at home, right? Whatever we want to call it, it is the perfect recipe to use for cooking with kids. I am always on the hunt for recipes my young daughters can help with that don’t involve too many steps. It’s also great when the recipes include things like hand-mixing so they don’t get bored.
Thus far, the girls and I have made this recipe 3-4 times. This past summer, we set up a bake stand in front of our house to sell these delicious buttermilk muffins along with some super yummy blueberry muffins. A few days before, we had gone berry picking at Wye Mountain in Arkansas. We picked the most delicious blueberries there. The blueberry muffin post will come soon enough to this little bloggity blog.
The girls had a great time helping with these buttermilk spice muffins.
Make Mimi’s Cafe Buttermilk Spice Muffins Recipe at Home
No doubt, the nut topping on the tops of these buttermilk muffins are the icing on the cake – literally. One thing about the buttermilk spice muffins at Mimi’s Cafe is they are always so moist. (Sorry for those of you who cringe at that word. But no other way to put it.) Those muffins have such a delicate crumbly center.
When baking these buttermilk muffins at home, you do have to play around with the bake times a bit because some of my batches have not come out as moist as the ones at Mimi’s. There could be a lot of factors involved. However, I have found that pulling the muffins from the oven a minute or so sooner than the recipe calls helps with this issue. Of course, ovens vary with this sort of thing.
Buttermilk Spice Muffins - Mimi's Cafe Copycat
Equipment
- oven
Ingredients
Wet Ingredients for Buttermilk Spice Muffins
- 2 Eggs whisked lightly
- 1 cup Buttermilk
- ¼ cup Butter melted
- ¼ cup Vegetable Oil
- 1 tsp Vanilla
Dry Ingredients for Buttermilk Spice Muffins
- 1 cup Sugar
- 2 ½ cup All-purpose flour
- 3 tsp Baking Powder
- 1 tsp Baking soda
- 1 tsp Cinnamon
- 2 tsp Nutmeg
- ½ tsp Salt
Cinnamon Sugar Walnut Topping
- ⅓ cup Sugar
- ⅓ cup All purpose flour
- ⅓ cup Walnuts chopped; can use pecans, if desired
- 1 tsp Cinnamon
- 1 tsp Nutmeg
- 2 tbsp Butter cut into very small pieces
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
- Spray one 12-cup muffin tin with Pam or add paper liners to tin.
- In a medium bowl, add all wet ingredients and lightly stir.
- In a second medium bowl, add all dry ingredients and lightly stir.
- Make a well in the flour mixture, and pour the wet ingredients into the flour mixture bowl.
- Gently mix the muffin mix together by hand just until combined, careful not to over mix.*
- With an ice cream scoop or large spoon, fill muffin cups about 3/4 cups full of muffin batter.
- Prepare nut topping by mixing sugar, flour, chopped walnuts, cinnamon, nutmeg, and butter.
- Quickly add 1 tablespoon or so of nut topping to the top of each muffin cup. **
- Place muffin tin in oven and bake for 18-20 minutes when muffins are domed on the top and are a golden color.
- Check for doneness in the center of muffins with a toothpick or knife.
- Allow to cool for 5-10 minutes before gently easing each muffin from its cup or wrapper.
- Cool completely on wire racks.
Notes
Nutrition
Be sure to check out some of our other Cooking with Kids recipes such as our cinnamon oatmeal cookies and our arroz con leche.
Laura
These turned out perfectly! What an incredible dupe recipe.
Sarah
These turned out perfect, and tasted just like Mimi’s! I brought them to my book club meeting.
Amy
Yay! I’m so glad you and your group enjoyed them!
Maryan Baker
Thanks for the great recipe.
Made them per instructions and they were awesome.
The Gifted Gabber
Thank you for sharing that, Maryan! I’m glad you enjoyed them!
Erin
I made these and they were tasty, but I’m not sure the cinnamon measurement is correct (1 tablespoon?) Mine taste more like cinnamon muffins than spice muffins, and they came out brown because of the amount of cinnamon. The Mimi’s Cafe ones are lighter, similar to the ones in the photos on this post. Other “copycat” recipes list the amount of cinnamon as 1 teaspoon, so I’m wondering if there is a typo? Otherwise I enjoyed this recipe, very easy to follow!
The Gifted Gabber
Oh, my! You are right, Erin! A few months ago, my recipe card completely disappeared from this post (for some reason I still don’t know), and I had to re-enter everything back onto a new card and upload it to the post. I must have accidentally typed the tablespoon on there. Good catch! I will update the recipe card now. Well, at least your muffins were tasty! Thank you!
Sharon
I made these today and they were fabulous! Thanks so much for sharing the recipe.
The Gifted Gabber
Sharon, I am so glad you enjoyed them! They are definitely a favorite over here!
Michelle Faber
I made them with Truvia instead of sugar(1/2cup) and changed out the topping with a combination of Truvia white & Truvia brown sugar & regular cinnamon sprinkled on top. My family LOVED them!
The Gifted Gabber
Yay! Thanks for the feedback or your substitutions, Michelle! My family loves them too!
Barbara Riddle
Dry and tasteless! The only things these muffins have in common with Mimi’s is they are muffins and they have buttermilk in them.
The Gifted Gabber
I hate they did not work for you, Barbara! Every time I have made them, everyone has raved.
Jill
This direction: “Pour one cup of flour mixture into sugar mix. Add one cup of buttermilk. Alternate back and forth until you end with the last cup of flour” does not make sense. The recipe only calls for 3/4 cup of buttermilk. And it calls for 2 1/2 cups flour so there is t a last cup of flour.
The Gifted Gabber
Jill, I just checked the recipe card and you are absolutely right. Something was off with that particular instruction. This led me to reworking the recipe a bit this afternoon and testing out a few changes. The muffins turned out delicious with the updated directions. I have updated the recipe card. Thank you for letting me know!
Taytum Brown
My Mimi’s Cafe also closed! It’s like a heartbreak and the worst breakup without their buttermilk spice muffins lol. I’m so glad you made this recipe.
The Gifted Gabber
Taytum, when you need a Mimi’s fix, you will have to give these a try! And, yes…heartbreak!
Jamie Gramlich
My AR grands need to make these for Nanoo and Pops! Please.!