Cinnamon Doughnut Muffins
I’ve moved house! No more gross housemates stealing my food who live like pigs keeping me up all night. I’ve got a lovely modern kitchen which I share with just two other lovely gentlemen. The only challenge I face now is dealing with the lack of natural light. Thus far I have resisted getting any sort of lighting to assist my photography but I think it may be time. Basement flat life eh.
So as well as a new home, I also start a new job on Monday! It’s like I decided to make all the changes at once in my life…accidently. I will tell you a little more about my job once I’ve settled in. I can tell you one thing though, I will have a lot more free time to work on my blog. “I will blog more”. An empty promise I have made myself for months now but have thus far not managed to fulfil! Every so often I get a new wave of motivation and enthusiasm for cooking/baking. Watching Ratatouille always makes me want to cook and GBBO made me realise I need to pull my socks up and start pushing myself a bit more to make more challenging things.
I have set my self some “personal objectives” and each month I am going to try and master a skill or a skill area. Lets hope I can maintain this drive. It’s a bit like when you start a new year at uni and you’re like “this year I will read every book on the reading list and I will finish my coursework days before the deadline rather than minutes”. We all know that this lasts all of one week before we fall back into our usual ways. But not this time. No Siree. This time I WII do it….
Doughnut Muffins. “What makes this muffin a doughnut?” Is what people always ask me when I make these. Then they have a bite and say “they actually taste like cinnamon doughnuts?!” I KNOW RIGHT?! It’s the slightly crispy sugary coating that makes these real doughnutty in my humble opinion. They are so super easy to make as well, whereas actual doughnuts are a bit more tricky. You could call them “Duffins”. I don’t.
Recipe
As usual this recipe is an amalgamation of a few recipes I have come across. I chose to add Lemon Curd and Strawberry Jam. I found that the lemon curd was absorbed into the dough a bit so you get the lemon flavour but not the runny curd. You can fill them with whatever jam/marmalade you fancy, but they are great plain too. The one annoying thing about this recipe is that it makes 14. You can of course half the recipe but you’ll eat at least 2 muffins whilst they are warm….
Serves: 14
Prep Time: 10 mins
Cooking Time: 22-24mins
Skill Level: Muffin too hard
Equipment
Mixing bowls x 2
12 hole muffin tray
14 muffin cases
bowls x 2 (deepish bowls, like cereal bowls)
335ml milk
2 eggs
120ml vegetable oil
1tsp vanilla extract
140g caster sugar
455g plain flour
3tsp baking powder
½tsp cinnamon
optional filling
1tsp per muffin jam/marmalade/curd
100g unsalted butter (melted)
100g caster sugar
1-2tsp cinnamon (to taste)
Method
- Preheat oven to 180c/160c fan/gas 6
- Line muffin tray with cases.
- Whisk together; milk, eggs, oil, vanilla extract and sugar until combined.
- In a separate mixing bowl mix together; flour, baking powder and cinnamon.
- Make a well in the centre of the dry ingredients and pour in the wet ingredients.
- Beat mixture well until there are no lumps.
- NO FILLING; spoon batter into muffin cases until ¾ full (about 3 dessert spoonfuls).
- WITH FILLING; spoon in about 2 dessert spoonfuls of batter into each case followed by 1 tsp of jam/marmalade then top with one more spoon of batter (filling should be covered and muffin case ¾ full).
- Bake for 22-24mins until tops of muffins are golden in colour.
- Whilst the muffins are baking prepare the coating by melting the butter in a deep bowl and filling another bowl with sugar and cinnamon.
- Immediately after muffins are taken out of the oven remove them from the tray. They must be coated whilst hot.
- COATING; dip the top of the muffin in melted butter then dip in sugar and twist until muffin top is coated.*
*Make sure you don’t leave the muffin in the sugar for too long otherwise your sugar will become wet with melted butter. If this happens, don’t worry, just spoon the sugar over the muffins after dipping them. If you are left with sugar or butter, save them to use for another bake!
MUFFIN BEATS A HOT DOUGHNUT AND A CUPPA CAWFEE
I am going to see Deerhunter on Saturday. I like them. They are good. Have a listen…
KB x