Doughnut Muffins

So the last post was the "nice" recipe that I made for our breakfast meeting at work. This one for doughnut muffins is clearly the naughty one. That's right — I'm living on the edge.

These muffins were very tasty and nice to satisfy a sweet tooth in the morning. I'm not a big doughnut person, but I was told that they had a similar taste and texture as a cake doughnut. And you don't even need fry anything. Score.

A pair of doughnut muffins enjoying the view.

These muffins also transported well, so they were pretty easy for me to lug into work on my city commute.

I started with a recipe from Fine Cooking and adapted it somewhat. One major change I made was to the amount the recipe yielded. I basically reduced the recipe by 1/4 (which made for a fun few minutes of doing math).

While these were tasty, I think it would be really fun to experiment with different variations. For instance, as one of my co-workers suggested, you could try injecting them with your favorite jam to mimic a jelly doughnut. You could also top them with chocolate and sprinkles. Wait — are we talking breakfast or dessert here?


Doughnut Muffins Recipe (makes 16-18 muffins)

Ingredients for the muffins:

18 oz. unsalted butter, room temperature
1 1/3 cups sugar
3 large eggs, room temperature
4 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
3 3/4 tsp. baking powder
3/8 tsp. baking soda
1 1/3 tsp. salt
3/4 tsp. nutmeg
1 1/4 cups milk
3/4 of a 1/4 cup sour cream (sorry but I couldn't do this math and just eyeballed it in the measuring cup)

Ingredients for dipping:
12 tbsp. unsalted butter; more as needed
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 1/2 tbsp. cinnamon

Directions:

• Put a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat it to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour a standard-size muffin tin. 

• To make the muffins. In a stand mixer or a large bowl, cream the butter and sugar. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, until just mixed in. Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and nutmeg in a separate bowl. Combine the milk and sour cream in a small saucepan and heat it over low heat just until warm to the touch, stirring constantly so the mixture doesn't curdle. Mix a quarter of the dry ingredients into the butter mixture. Then mix in a third of the milk mixture. Continue mixing in the remaining dry and wet ingredients alternately, ending with the dry. Mix until well combined and smooth, but don't overmix. Scoop enough batter into each tin so that the top of the batter is even with the rim of the cup (a large ice cream scoop is handy for keeping all muffins the same size). Bake the muffins until firm to the touch, 25 to 30 minutes.
• To finish the muffins. Melt the butter in a dish. In a separate bowl, combine the sugar and cinnamon. When the muffins are just cool enough to handle, remove them from the tin, dip them into or brush them all over with the melted butter, and then roll them in the cinnamon sugar mixture to coat them completely.