The weather has been a little bipolar here during these past few days. It’s been relatively hot for the most part this summer, but lately we’ve had a few days of high winds, dark clouds and rain. I don’t mind the weather one bit, especially if the temperature drops a few degrees! Yesterday morning we woke up to a dark house. I peeked outside and it was sprinkling. Once our little guy woke up we headed into the kitchen to make some pancakes. It just seemed like the thing to do on a rainy(ish) day.
While I was gathering ingredients in our fridge I noticed that we had a bit of buttermilk leftover from making our favorite banana bread. The expiration date was today, so I decided to put it to good use. I’ve been wanting to make these little cinnamon sugar doughnut muffins again for a while now. The recipe calls for more buttermilk than I had, so I just added a tablespoon of whole milk to compensate. It did the trick 🙂
It also called for cardamon. I know, I know, it’s not a common spice to have on hand. If you don’t have it, don’t worry, it’s not the end of the world… I promise. During the fall I like to add pumpkin pie spice instead. It’s definitely NOT the same thing, but it adds lots of flavor to these babies. Anyway, after I had the dough mixed up, I pulled out my mini muffin pans and filled them up. I was kind of expecting to only get 12 from the batch but I wound up getting 24! I baked them for 14 minutes and then as soon as they were cool I dunked them in melted butter and rolled the tops in a cinnamon sugar mixture. As soon as one was finished I couldn’t resist biting into it!
Not only were these muffins dense and flavorful, but the buttery cinnamon sugar tops were to die for! They tasted like snickerdoodles! YUM. If you’re looking for a quick and fun recipe to try, I’d highly suggest giving these mini cinnamon sugar doughnut muffins a try. Because you can’t go wrong when it comes to homemade doughnut holes!
Mini Cinnamon Sugar Doughnut Muffins Recipe
Ingredients
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/8 tsp baking soda
- 1/4 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp nutmeg
- 1/4 tsp cardamom *
- 1/4 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 cup +2 Tbsp buttermilk
- 4 Tbsp (½ stick) butter - room temperature
- 1/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 Tbsp brown sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1 egg
Cinnamon Sugar Topping
- 2 Tbsp butter - melted
- 1/4 cup granulated or coarse sugar
- 2 tsp cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lightly grease two mini muffin pans, set aside.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer, cream together the butter, sugars and vanilla extract until light and fluffy, about 2 minutes. Add the egg and mix until combined.
- In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, cardamom, and cinnamon. With mixing speed on low, gradually alternate adding the flour mixture & the buttermilk into the bowl of the stand mixer. Mix just until combined, do not overmix!
- Spoon the batter evenly into the prepared pans, filling the cups ⅔ of the way full (they rise a lot!). Place in the oven and bake for 14-16 minutes, or until they are a pale golden brown and a cake tester inserted into the middle of one of the center muffins comes out clean.
- Remove them from the oven, and let them cool for a couple of minutes, or until you can handle them. While they’re cooling, melt the butter for the topping (this is easily done in the microwave). Dip the tops of each muffin in the butter, then roll in the cinnamon sugar mixture.
NOTES
-You can substitute ½ c. of buttermilk for ½ c. canned pumpkin puree to make pumpkin doughnut holes.
Nutrition
Recipe source: adapted from my Donut Muffins
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