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Muffin Tin Doughnuts

Source of Recipe

From "Cook's Illustrated All-Time Best Brunch"


Recipe Introduction

"This recipe delivers the best of both worlds: the sweet, satisfying crispness and tender crumb of a cake doughnut and the effortless ease of an everyday muffin. Baking muffins rich and crisp enough to be mistaken for a doughnut all came down to one ingredient: butter. A full stick of melted butter along with an extra egg yolk gave us indulgent, moist muffins, and cutting the flour with cornstarch delivered a perfectly tender crumb that wouldn't break apart. Baking the muffins in a hot oven created just the right crust, but the pièce de résistance was the crunchy cinnamon-sugar coating. After brushing each muffin in more melted butter, we rolled them in the sweet, spiced coating and allowed them to cool before digging in. From crust to crumb, these muffins were every inch the doughnuts in disguise we craved. In step 3, brush the doughnuts generously, using up all the melted butter. Use your hand to press the cinnamon sugar onto the doughnuts to coat them completely."

List of Ingredients

Doughnuts:
â—¦ 2 ¾ cups all-purpose flour
â—¦ 1 cup sugar
â—¦ ¼ cup cornstarch
â—¦ 1 tablespoon baking powder
â—¦ 1 teaspoon salt
â—¦ ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
â—¦ 1 cup buttermilk
â—¦ 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
â—¦ 2 large eggs plus 1 large yolk

Coating:
â—¦ 1 cup sugar
â—¦ 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
â—¦ 8 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted


Recipe

For the doughnuts: Adjust oven rack to middle position and heat oven to 400 degrees. Spray 12-cup muffin tin with vegetable oil spray. Whisk flour, sugar, cornstarch, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg together in bowl. Whisk buttermilk, melted butter, and eggs and yolk together in separate bowl. Add wet ingredients to dry ingredients and stir with rubber spatula until just combined.

Divide batter evenly among prepared muffin cups. Bake until doughnuts are lightly browned and toothpick inserted in center comes out clean, 19 to 22 minutes, rotating muffin tin halfway through baking. Let doughnuts cool in tin for 5 minutes.

For the coating: Whisk sugar and cinnamon together in bowl. Remove doughnuts from tin. Working with one doughnut at a time, brush all over with melted butter, then roll in cinnamon sugar, pressing lightly to adhere. Transfer to wire rack and let cool for 15 minutes. Serve.

Makes 12 doughnuts