These Sour Cream Muffins From My Childhood Have a Surprising Secret Ingredient

I grew up in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, a small town that had one big department store called Prange’s. Picture the massive store that Ralphie visits with wonder in The Christmas Story. Yup — there was even a Santaland on the top floor, complete with cranky elves. But as a foodie kid, it was the bakery in Prange’s that held all the excitement for me. Everything was fresh-baked right there, from the Cookie Monster decorated cookies on a stick (the ’70s answer to cake pops) to my favorite treat in the world: sour cream muffins.

They were huge muffins with a crunchy cinnamon sugar topping and a buttery, fluffy yellow crumb with just a little hint of spice. Heaven to a vanilla-loving kid. But when the store closed, so did the bakery. Until recently, the muffins occupied only a vague memory in my mind, nagging me with a beloved taste lost forever.

Thanks to the miracle of the internet, though, I found a recipe online that claimed to be the original Prange’s sour cream muffins. I tried it, and while it needed some tweaks and repeated testing to get the texture right, I did learn a few secrets.

Beyond what you’d expect in a muffin recipe (sugar, butter, eggs, flour, baking powder), here are the ingredients in Prange’s sour cream muffins that make it so special:

• Sour cream: I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that the recipe used a full cup of sour cream, (Wisconsin is the dairy state, after all). It’s what makes the muffins so tender, with a hint of tang.
• Cinnamon sugar topping: A sugar-spice mixture combined with butter create this muffin’s crumbly, wonderful top.
• Mace: This was the biggest surprise of the recipe recreation. Mace, a seldom-used spice, is actually the net-like protective arils that grow around nutmeg. The flavor profile of mace is subtle with hints of pine, black pepper, and coriander. A little ground mace goes a long way, but even a little bit gives the muffins a delicious, mysterious flavor.

Now that I’ve fine-tuned the recipe, I make these sour cream muffins on the regular. They’re perfect for a lazy Sunday morning and they reheat well in the toaster oven for at least three days. And because I need mace to make them, I’ve found that I’m dipping into the jar for other recipes.

Now I sprinkle a pinch of mace on my morning cappuccino, add it to butternut squash soup, homemade breakfast sausage, and even creamy fish chowder. Flavor memories are such a powerful thing; I’m really grateful I’ve been reacquainted with a favorite childhood treat, and a new spice drawer discovery.