Doughnut Muffins (16.3/25)

 

I'm sure you've heard of the "muffin method" in baking. It's fairly simple. You mix together the dry ingredients on one bowl. You mix the wet ingredients in a second bowl. Then you combine, and stir just until moistened--and not one bit more--or your muffins are tough. 

Take all that, and throw it out the window. These muffins have their own method. 

First things first. I preheated the oven to 425 (425 for muffins?! That's hot!), and filled 12 muffin cups  with liners, AND sprayed them with Pam. I don't like to leave sticking muffins in the hands of fate. 

I combined softened butter, oil, brown sugar, and white sugar in a bowl until they were light in color, and smooth.  The eggs were then dumped in one at a time and mixed until incorporated. At this point, I  realize I'm not making muffins, I'm making sponge cake. In a muffin tin. AKA cupcakes. I'm still going to tell myself they're muffins. Because then I can eat them for breakfast. 

Next, the baking powder, baking soda, vanilla, nutmeg, and salt are stirred in. I grated fresh nutmeg for this, so I only used one teaspoon. This step was a bit of a departure from a regular sponge cake. (Usually the vanilla goes in with the the milk, and the rest is added later with the flour). 

Lastly, the milk and flour are added in alternately, beginning and ending with the flour. Once the batter was well mixed, it went straight into the tins. Which were FULL. Right to the top of the baking papers. 

These cupcakes, I mean muffins, were baked for 9 minutes, rotated, then 10 minutes to end with a nice light brown color. I was hesitant to pull them when I did. Something in me screams for a nice golden brown, but they would have been dried out at that point. 

They rested for about three minutes in the pan, before having their tops dipped in melted butter, followed by a cinnamon/sugar mix. Heavy on the cinnamon, just how I like it. 

While the lift was pretty impressive, it was not quite as high as the ones pictured in the recipe (time to check the date on the baking powder and baking soda). When Michael ate his first bite, he said "this tastes exactly how a sponge looks". Ha! Sponge cake! And indeed he was right. It was very springy and more of sturdy crumb than you would expect biting into a muffin. While I thought was a nice change, and delicious in it's own right, it could be a bit disappointing if you're expecting a tender, soft crumb muffin. 

I think it's much more like a cinnamon/sugar coffee cake than a doughnut. In fact, no one in the family thought it resembled a doughnut in the slightest. However, the nutmeg in the muffin was amazing, and the cinnamon/sugar on top was the best part of the whole thing. So while I enjoyed this unique foray into muffin land, I don't think I'll be baking this one again.

Scores (out of 5): Breanna-3. Dustin-3. Michael-2. James-3.8. Andrew-4.5. Total 16.3/25

https://www.kingarthurbaking.com/recipes/doughnut-muffins-recipe