Donut-Muffins

So, how do you pull a bunch of designers out of those back-to-work-blues :( ?
...
I'm not sure if there is any universal answer to that question but what I did was make donut muffins. Well, they aren't really just donut muffins... it's more like.. if a muffin and a cake donut got together and had a baby, and then that baby went and fell in love with a churro- and then had another baby.. well that baby would be what I brought into the studio last Monday for Muffin Monday.

While I was quite happy to hear that these little nummy-nuggets NEVER see a deep fryer or anything like that... donot (donut! haha) be mistaken.. these muffins are by no means healthy- and are not for the faint-hearted... SO if your New Years resolution involved losing weight of any amount, you should file this recipe under your 'only once in a while' file.
My sister, Allison, e-mailed me this recipe after trying it for herself, and I made some of my own and some of her suggested changes. So, here we go!

Donut Muffins

You'll need:
(for the muffins)
2 C all purpose flour
1 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 tsp ground cloves
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda 1/2 C melted salted butter
1 C sugar
1 C milk

(for the magic cinnamon-sugar dusting)
1 C sugar
1/2 C melted butter
3 tsp cinnamon

With your oven preheated at 375º, take the flour, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, baking powder, and baking soda and whisk them together in a bowl. Then, take the butter and stir it together with the sugar until the sugar starts to dissolve a little bit.

Then, add the butter mixture to the dry ingredients and stir together. Then add the milk to loosen up the batter and stir until its smooth and goes from..
           

this

to this!

Next, spray a muffin pan with non-stick baking spray (no muffin papers this time, so you want to make sure the muffins won't get stuck in there) fill each muffin-well 3/4 of the way full with the batter, and bake them for 20-25 minutes. 

So, next comes the part that I nearly slapped myself for... but then resolved to only make these muffins once in a blue moon... prepare yourselves... it gets pretty decadent from here...

While the muffins are baking, take the cup of sugar and mix it together with the cinnamon. Place it into a shallow bowl or plate, and then put the melted butter into another shallow bowl/plate. When the muffins are done baking, remove them from the muffin pan, and (suppress the butter-panic-attack) quickly dip the muffin into the melted butter and roll in the cinnamon-sugar. Take a deep breath, resolve not to eat too many, and repeat.
 
These muffins are by far much yummier when eaten warm, but are still great at room temp. Even though the entire staff wasn't in the studio last week, the muffins still got eaten up! Horray! I'd like to think that our collective good mood was due mostly to the sugar-high from these muffins (haha)

Hope you enjoyed this sugar-high of a blog entry. Remember: if you're trying to eat healthily, eating decadent treats is something to be done in moderation. Now, go put someone into sugar-ecstasy.

Foodie foodie!!!!