A faster donut

Remember about a month ago I was having a crazy pregnancy craving for donuts? If not, then check it out here. Well I can't blame the cravings on pregnancy now, but today I caught myself daydreaming about donuts again. And then I remembered the recipe my friend sent me a few days after my donut post for donut muffins! So I had to try them out today.

Donut muffins:

Regular muffin pan – yields 12

Mini muffin pan – yields 36

1/3 c. shortening

1 egg

1 ½ t. baking powder

¼ t. nutmeg

½ c. white sugar

1 ½ c. flour

½ t. salt

½ c. milk

For after muffins are baked, see instructions below:

6 T. melted butter

½ c. white sugar

1 t. cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix thoroughly the shortening, sugar and egg. Add alternately the dry ingredients and milk. Do not over beat. Fill muffin tins about 2/3 full. Here mine are all ready for the oven!

Bake to a golden brown; 20-25 min. for regular size, 15 min. for mini-muffins. Here are mine all out of the oven. They're even yummy just this way without the sugar coating. I just couldn't wait, I had to try one right out of the oven.

While muffins are baking, melt butter and set aside. This I found out is an important step. You need to let the butter cool for a bit after it's melted. If you don't, the sugar dissolves when you dip the muffin in it like in my picture here. You can see the front left muffin the sugar had dissolved, unlike the one's farther back that were dipped once my butter started to cool. See you learn something new everyday right!

In a separate bowl (I used a ziploc type baggie for this, it worked great. I just dumped the muffin in and gave it a shake. This could be a great step for little helpers!), combine white sugar and cinnamon and set aside. Remove from pans and dip at once into melted butter and then into sugar mixture. I dipped just the tops in the butter. Another key to these is to dip them RIGHT after you take them out of the pan. Yes they'll be a little warm but that's the idea, the sugar will stick the the muffin if they are still warm.

So how do they taste? JUST like a cinnamon sugar cake donut hole. They are delicious I have to say. Little boy bacon couldn't leave them alone either, I think he stole 3 right after I dipped them. Mr. Bacon, being an expert in donuts, approved of them as well! I guess I know what I'm having with my coffee in the morning, do you?