Donut Muffins

For a person that rarely eats donuts (it's most certainly for health reasons and not taste reasons), it seems that I have recently come into the donut phase of my life.

A couple of nights ago, I gorged on an array of fabulous vegan mini-donuts from the North Port Fishington Cookie Factory at a potluck (all of their vegan desserts are irresistible!). And just a week before, I made a trip to Reading Terminal Market expressly to chomp on glazed donuts fried up at the Pennsylvania Dutch Festival (glazed won favorite).

But even before that, I made donut muffins, a recipe that's been sitting in my bookmark folder for who knows how long. I blame these simple, and simply delicious, cakey donut muffins for my current donut cravings.

Baked and not fried, you could tell yourself that donut muffins are healthier than regular donuts, but lets not kid ourselves. As I was coating the mini donut muffins with butter to facilitate the sticking of the sugar coating, I was thinking, "Well, this negates any health benefits of baked donuts." But on my second batch (yeah, they're that good), I discovered that you really didn't need butter to make sugar stick to the muffin, especially if you use powdered sugar instead of superfine sugar.

Know what else I discovered? If you're bringing these babies to a gathering, don't sugar coat the muffins until right before. After a half day or so, the sugar (especially the superfine sugar) absorbs moisture from the muffin and crusts up.

This recipe is a keeper. Next time maybe I'll try a cinnamon sugar coating, or dropping frozen blueberries in the batter.
Donut Muffins
adapted from Baking Bites
makes 10 regular muffins

3/4 cup sugar
1 egg
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup milk (made one batch with rice milk to good results)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg

Coating
2 tablespoons butter, melted (optional)
1/2 cup superfine sugar (can pulse regular sugar in food processor to make), or powdered sugar

• Lightly grease a muffin tin with vegetable oil or spray.
  
• In a large bowl, beat together sugar and egg until light in color. Add vegetable oil, milk, and vanilla to sugar mixute and combine.
• In a seperate bowl, combine flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg. Then pour into liquid mixture and stir to combine.
• Fill muffin cups 3/4 full, and bake in a 350 degree preheated oven for 18-20 minutes, or until a tester inserted in the middle comes out clean.