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Weekend Cooking is a weekly foodie meme hosted by Candace over at Beth Fish Reads.

Ever since I bought The Back in the Day Bakery Cookbook, I’ve been paging through it trying to figure out which recipe to try first. There are recipes such as the Pecan-Chocolate Coffee Cake, the Ham and Cheese Pastry Puff, and the classic Carrot Cake with Spiced Cream Cheese Frosting. They all look delicious but I decided to try the Cinnamon-Sugar-Doughnut Muffins.

Cinnamon-Sugar-Doughnut Muffins

Makes 12 muffins

For the Muffins:

  • 3 cups of unbleached all-purpose flour
  • ¼ teaspoon baking soda
  • 2 ½ teaspoons baking powder, preferably aluminum-free
  • ¾ teaspoon fine sea salt
  • ¼ teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
  • ¼ teaspoon ground cardamom
  • ¾ cup plus 2 tablespoons whole milk
  • 2 tablespoons buttermilk
  • 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
  • ¾ cup sugar
  • 2 large eggs

For the doughnut coating

  • 8 tablespoons (1 stick) unsalted butter, melted
  • 1 cup sugar mixed with 1 tablespoon ground cinnamon

To make the muffins: Position a rack in the lower third of the oven and preheat the oven to 350◦F. Lightly spray 12 large muffin cups with vegetable oil spray.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cardamom. In a medium bowl, combine the milk and buttermilk.

In a large mixing bowl, using a handheld mixer on medium speed, cream the butter for 2 to 3 minutes. Turn the speed to low and gradually add the sugar. Continue to mix until the mixture lightens in color. Add the eggs one at a time, beating just until combined. Add the dry ingredients in thirds, alternating with the milk mixture, mixing just until smooth; do not overmix.

With a large ice cream scoop or spoon, scoop the batter into the prepared muffin cups, filling them approximately two-thirds full. Bake for 20 to 25 minutes, until the tops are firm to the touch and lightly golden.

While the muffins bake, set up two bowls to dunk them in. In one bowl you will have the melted butter, and in the other bowl you will have the cinnamon sugar.

Let the doughnuts cool completely on a wire rack. Dunk them in the melted butter, and then coat them with the cinnamon sugar. The muffins can be stored in an airtight container for up to 2 days.

Note: I don’t have the print version of the cookbook, just the ebook so this was my first time trying a recipe on my Nook. I found cooking using my ereader to be a little messy. There’s one thing to get sugar on a printed cookbook but it’s another to get it on an ereader. I wish I could have printed the page, (Barnes and Nobles, are you listening?), but I will use my Nook again to make more recipes.

What the cookbook didn’t tell me is that it took more than an hour to make the muffins from start to finish. I didn’t mind but if I had known, I would have made them first thing that morning. Part of the problem is I didn’t keep in mind that my muffin cups are huge! They’re twice the size of regular muffins cups. So it took about 15 minutes longer to bake. Plus, I’m not use to making things from scratch so I didn’t know that putting everything together would take so long (about 20 minutes).

The muffins were moist and perfect. They were cakey and the cinnamon-sugar coating was a great touch. I made the muffins with the help of the kids and it turned out to be a nice kid-friendly recipe to try. Sorry that I don’t have any pictures to show you all. The muffins were too good to stop and take a picture of. Just imagine a muffin with tons of cinnamon and sugar!

Now I can’t wait to try the cookbook’s recipe for Cinnamon-Sour Cream Coffee Cake.

What are you making this weekend?

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