One of my sons had a friend sleep over the other night. He’s a huge fan of my baking, so I knew I had to make something really good for breakfast. I decided on Cinnamon Bun Loaf. Doesn’t that sound good? Well it wasn’t. In fact it was a TOTAL BUST! I couldn’t believe it; I had to throw the whole thing away. I actually should have known better since the batter contained yeast, and never once in my life have I successfully cooked with yeast. Each and every time I’ve tried it a disaster has ensued, and this time was no exception. The bread smelled great when it was cooking, but the batter never rose, and as a result I ended up with this dense, seemingly undercooked slab of disgustion. I know that’s not a word, but my husband uses it all the time to describe anything utterly gross and it makes me laugh.
Well, so much for my baking failure. Thankfully it was quickly followed by a baking success. I made a batch of sugar donut muffins and all was right with the world. I had renewed faith in my baking ability and the kids enjoyed them. Actually I should qualify that – two kids enjoyed them. Our guest and one of my sons. One of my other sons took one bite, smiled, then looked at the muffin, noticed an infinitesmal speck of fresh nutmeg and promptly rejected the rest of the muffin. “What’s this brown stuff in the muffin?”, he demanded. Now my eyes are pretty good and I could barely see the speck of nutmeg, but I guess his eyes are better than mine because the rest of his muffin was met with flat-out rejection. Once he made his proclamation, two other boys jumped on the bandwagon and rejected theirs as well. This is what I live with everyday. It’s crazy. Who rejects a warm, fresh muffin whose top is rolled in sugar? Only someone insane and it looks like I produced three of them.
The directions call for rolling the entire muffin in sugar. I thought that was a little too over the top, so I just decided to cover the muffin tops in sugar. They were plenty sweet for me. I’ll definitely make these again.
Sugar Donut Muffins
Recipe from Nicole at Baking Bites3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking power
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup milk (low fat is fine)
1 tsp vanilla extract2 tbsp butter, melted
1/2 cup sugar, for rollingPreheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease a muffin tin with cooking spray or vegetable oil.
In a large bowl, beat together sugar and egg until light in color.
In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Pour into egg mixture and stir to combine. Pour in vegetable oil, milk and vanilla extract.
Divide batter evenly into 10 muffin cups or ~24 mini-muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full.
Bake for 15-18 minutes for standard-sized muffins or 11-12 minutes for mini-muffins, until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean.
While muffins are baking, melt butter and pour remaining sugar into a small bowl.
When muffins are done, lightly brush the top of each with some melted butter, remove from the pan and roll in sugar. Cool on a wire rack.
Yield: ~10 standard muffins or ~24 mini-muffins
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how can u make these without egg if u havesomeone allergic to egg and peanuts
I have baked for friends who don’t eat eggs, and I used this egg replacement product. It worked like a charm. Hope this helps.
Big hit at our house! Kids loved them. Thanks for the recipe!
Haven’t checked the other comments, but these are very much like (if not the same things) as what are called “French Breakfast Puffs” from the Betty Crocker cookbook (http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/betty-crockers-picture-cookbook-facsimile-edition-betty-crocker-editors/1116494757?ean=9780028627717). My mother used to make them a lot when I lived at home, and I have fond memories of the smell of them, and of helping dip them in melted butter and rolling them in cinnamon sugar. Wonderful taste. It was hard not to eat more than two.
Made them this morning! They taste like doughnuts from our favorite shoppe!
Thank you!
Just made these using a donut baking pan and they came out great. Thanks for the recipe!
If I made these the day before do you think they would still be good? Or would they be like day old donuts? I’d love to make them for our Easter brunch. Thanks.
I typically make these as mini muffins, and they are definitely best the day they’re made. They’ll be a bit drier the second day.
These are WAY too sweet, even without the sugar on top….not a fan! Waste of ingredients!