Doughnut Muffins Recipe
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These dense, slightly tangy, cinnamon-sugar-coated muffins are the perfect answer to your morning doughnut craving.
For a behind-the-scenes look at the Brombergs’ cooking philosophy, check out their Q&A with CHOW.
Special equipment: You’ll need a pastry brush as well as a 24-well mini muffin pan for this recipe.
Portioning the sticky batter into the small wells of the muffin pan is easiest with a 1/2-ounce ice cream scoop. If you don’t have one, just use a spoon.
Game plan: The batter will keep in the fridge for up to 3 days, so you can prepare it in advance and bake when you’re ready.
For the coating:
- 1/2 cup granulated sugar
- 2 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
For the muffins:
- 8 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 stick), melted
- 3 cups all-purpose flour, plus more for coating the pan
- 2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
- 3/4 teaspoon fine salt
- 1/2 teaspoon freshly ground nutmeg
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 3/4 cup whole milk, at room temperature
- 2 tablespoons buttermilk, at room temperature
- 10 tablespoons unsalted butter (1 1/4 sticks), at room temperature
- 3/4 cup plus 2 tablespoons granulated sugar
- 2 large eggs, at room temperature
- Combine the sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl and set aside.
For the muffins:
- Heat the oven to 375°F and arrange a rack in the middle. Lightly brush a 24-well mini muffin pan with some of the melted butter, then coat it with flour, tapping out any excess; set aside. Reserve the remaining melted butter for applying the cinnamon-sugar coating.
- In a large bowl, sift together the measured flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg, and baking soda. In a small bowl, whisk together the milk and buttermilk. Set both aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with a paddle attachment, beat the room-temperature butter and sugar on medium-high speed until light in color and fluffy, about 3 minutes. Beat in the eggs 1 at a time until combined. Stop the mixer and scrape down the sides of the bowl with a rubber spatula.
- With the mixer on low speed, beat in a quarter of the reserved dry ingredients. Then beat in a third of the reserved milk mixture. Continue to alternate until all of the remaining ingredients are incorporated, finishing with the dry ingredients. Do not overmix.
- Fill the prepared muffin pan wells just to the rim with batter. Bake until the muffins are lightly golden and firm to the touch, about 15 to 20 minutes. Let cool in the pan for 5 minutes. Transfer the muffins to a wire rack set over a baking sheet. Repeat the buttering and flouring of the muffin pan and bake the remaining batter.
- To coat the muffins, brush each generously with the melted butter and sprinkle generously with the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Serve warm or at room temperature.
Variation: Jelly Doughnut Muffins
If jelly doughnuts are more your style, allow the muffins to cool and use a small pastry tip to make a hole in the bottom of each. Fill the pastry bag with your favorite jam, jelly, or citrus curd and squeeze some into the muffins.
Made em, loved em! The only ingredient I lacked was milk, but by a miracle, had 3/4 c. exactly(!) of heavy cream left over from some ganache I made and so used that instead. It made the muffin moister and a bit lighter.
I made these using the recipe from King Arthur Flour and it was also quite dry and had no flavour. I think it is just a bad recipe....
nice flavor but Way toooo dry.
I made them without a mixer, and i think they are OK, a little bit dry, but since they are mini muffins i don't think its an issue. I just coated them in the top and bottom to make them less sweet. I really liked them.
I am a self taught baker. I started baking muffins about 10 years ago and did a lot of experimnents with my own recipes. Some great...some failures. With baking you can't always double or half a recipe successfully. The flour, fat, leavening, liquid has to be just right to make a good muffin. I think the flaw in this recipe is too much butter and using a mixer. Those 2 factors will make a dense muffin for sure. I am going to try this recipe using 1 stick of melted butter and mixing by hand. Also...usually 3 cups of flour makes 24 regular muffins and 12 jumbo.
I made this from a recipe by King Arthur Flour and it was dry and lacked flavour.
I'm confused. Does this make 24 or 48 mini muffins?
Problem with this recipe is it is the halved version of a recipe in Fine Cooking Magazine. Whoever halved it did basic conversion and not correct. Go to FC and type donut muffins in the search bar and the best recipe appears!!!!!
Chefpaulo it calls for a mini muffin tin which in fact are 24 and you can find them almost anywhere even at the big box stores.... Hopes this helps!
Hi Sally, The 8 tablespoons of butter at the beginning of the recipe is for greasing the pan and mixing with the cinnamon sugar. The 10 tablespoons near the end of the ingredient list is for making the acutal batter. Hope that helps!
I agree with the other posts. I made this recipe this weekend and it was dense and dry. I even recoated the muffins with butter and cinammon sugar in hopes to make them a little more moist. In the end, my husband suggested injecting them with vanilla pie filling which saved the day. They were still dense but definitely had more moisture and people ate them all. I would not use this recipe again though, would try to find something more light and fluffy.
A 24-well muffin tin. Um....I have yet to encounter one of those. I have a sixer here so i guess I can .25 everything. And, Sal, the first butter is for greasing the wells and having adhesive for the sugar topping. I was confused at first, too. CP
can't figure out the recipe with 2 butter ingredient on the list... sal
Is is possible to obtain a successful end product without using a stand mixer? Thanks
These came out dry & dense for me. Nothing like a cake donut, maybe closer to a scone. Calling them donut muffins is totally false advertising!
They seem like cake doughnuts to me. Now, I prefer the glazed raised doughnut, but since I suffer from fear of frying, I'll hang onto this recipe.
They remind me of the doughnuts from Starbucks! I think they are amazing!!!
If you want light and fluffy try this recipe for French Puffs, I think it's an old "Betty Crocker". 3/4 c milk,1/2 c veg oil,1egg, 2 c all purp or whle wheat flour, 1/3 c sugar (I use a little less), 3 tsp baking powder, 1tsp salt. 400 oven 18-20 minutes. Add wet to dry. When done dip tops in 1/2 c melted butt/marg and then into combo of 1/2 c sugar-1 tsp cinn. Yield 12 Great with coffee
The recipe says "These dense, slightly tangy, cinnamon-sugar-coated muffins". To me, dense would be heavy, not fluffy. I think I did something wrong. Too much mixing, not enough milk, egg, etc.
These are doughnut flavored (think cinnamon and nutmeg) muffins. They have the cakey texture of a muffin and the "flavor" of a cinnamon sugar sprinkled cake doughnut. They will not have the texture of a deep-fried cake doughnut.
These came out lighter than doughnuts for me. Very cornbread consistency. I was hoping they'd be a little heavier and moister. Did I mix them too much? Can I put less/more of something in?
Add some chopped nuts to the cinnamon sugar. I do that with my biscuit muffins which are very similar
SO they aren't what you would compare to a cake doughnut--that would be my expectation???
I know these as biscuit muffins
I made these for brunch on Sunday and they were so delicious. Curious as to how a muffin recipe would lead to something doughnut-y, I couldn't resist them. I didn't have enough batter for 48 mini muffins, however, even though mine were the size of those pictured. Also, next time I won't be as stingy with the butter and cinnamon sugar when I top them off. Now I'm wondering if I can adapt this recipe to create muffins evocative of those cider doughnuts we buy at road stands in the fall ... maybe this recipe, http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A8595-2004Oct5.html