Mini Donut Muffins

My girls will eat any doughnut you give them...my little Jordyn prefers glazed donut holes.  I can please them all with this simple recipe.  I bookmarked a recipe for doughnut muffins posted by Cooking with K.  I knew as soon as I saw the name that I had to make these...then I saw the picture...yummy!  I decided to make these in mini muffin pans so they are more like little donut hole bites.  See...they look like doughnut holes here...

I rolled some of the doughnut muffins in a cinnamon/sugar mixture and the others in a vanilla glaze.  Next time, I'm going to try a chocolate glaze, blueberry glaze, and strawberry glaze.  We have so many favorite doughnuts...the topping choices are really endless.  Whatever you like can be made into a glaze.  You can also use nuts, sprinkles, coconut, mini candy pieces, etc.  I think vanilla bean sugar would be amazing too!  My favorite doughnuts are apple fritters, so I could add diced apples to the muffins and then roll them in cinnamon vanilla glaze to recreate these.

This recipe makes 24 mini doughnut muffins, and I had enough batter left for 2 regular size muffins too!  I just made a few minor changes to the original recipe.

Ingredients:

1/3 C Canola oil
3/4 C white sugar
1 egg
3/4 C milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 3/4 C cake flour (or all purpose flour)
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 tsp cinnamon

Cinnamon/Sugar Topping:
4 T melted butter
1/4 C white sugar
1 tsp cinnamon

Vanilla Glaze:
1 C powdered sugar
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
2 T milk

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Spray a mini muffin pan with non-stick cooking spray. 

In a mixing bowl, add oil, sugar, egg, milk, and vanilla extract.  Beat for 1 minute.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, salt, and cinnamon.  Add to the wet ingredients.  Mix for another minute until combined and there are no more lumps.

Pour batter into a large liquid measuring cup with a spout.  Fill the muffin tins 3/4 of the way full.  

Bake for 9 minutes until puffed up and firm to the touch.

For the toppings:

Put the melted butter in a bowl.  Put the cinnamon/sugar in a separate bowl.  Dip each muffin top in the butter, then roll the entire muffin around in the cinnamon/sugar mixture.  Set aside.

Mix together the powdered sugar, vanilla, and enough milk to make a glaze in a bowl.  Dip each muffin in the glaze and roll around on all sides.  Set aside to let the glaze firm up.  Enjoy!