Dessert Muffins

Sadly our muffin theme is coming to an end, but we saved the best recipes for last. Our focus today is on dessert muffins. Dessert muffins might make you think of cupcakes, but they are not cupcakes. There’s no icing or sprinkles or fancy piping. These muffins are just a little sweeter and have richer ingredients than most muffins. They also aren’t probably something that you would have for breakfast every day; they may be more of a treat so that’s why we think of them as dessert muffins.

The first one is a recipe that I have tried many times before. It’s a very chocolatey and delicious muffin. They are quite sweet and rich so we have made them mini.

Chocolate Buttermilk Muffin

1/3 cup of vegetable oil

1 cup of buttermilk

2 eggs

1 tsp. of vanilla

½ tsp. of salt

1 tsp. of baking soda

2 tsp. of baking powder

½ cup of sugar

¼ cup of brown sugar

½ cup of cocoa powder

2 cups of flour

1 cup of chocolate chips

Mix all of the dry ingredients together in a bowl and then whisk all of the wet ingredients in a separate bowl.

Add the dry to the wet and stir well making sure to incorporate all of the ingredients.

Stir in the chocolate chips.

Fill the muffin pans ¾ full and bake in a 350 degree oven for 18-20 minutes.

Allow them to cool slightly. Some people like to let them cool lots, but I like to eat them with the chocolate all melty.

Another dessert muffin recipe that you can try is this Chai-Spiced Cheesecake Muffins. Nicole’s tried it once and says they are quite yummy. She made a few changes to the recipe when she made them; I’ve made some notes about that in the recipe below.

Chai-Spiced Cheesecake Muffin

For the muffin you will need...

1 ¾ cups of flour

2 tsp. cinnamon

½ tsp. of ground ginger

½ tsp. of ground cardamom

½ tsp. of ground nutmeg

1 tsp. of baking soda

½ tsp. of salt

2 cups of applesauce (Nicole used 1 cup applesauce and 1 cup pumpkin)

1 ¼ cups of brown sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp. of vanilla

½ cup of vegetable oil

For the filling you will need...

8 oz. brick of cream cheese

¼ cup of granulated sugar

1 tsp. of vanilla

Non-stick cooking spray for greasing

Preheat your oven to 375 degrees.

First of all you’re going to make the batter.

Whisk the flour, spices, and salt with a fork in one bowl.

In a separate bowl, mix the applesauce, pumpkin, brown sugar, eggs, vanilla, and oil.

Mix it all up with a fork and then add the dry ingredients to the bowl of wet ones and stir with a fork until the batter is thick and smooth.

Now to make the filling.

In a bowl, use a fork to mix the cream cheese, sugar, and vanilla. Mix until fluffy and smooth.

Grease your muffin tin with non-stick spray.

Scoop about ¼ cup of the batter into each of the muffin cups. Add a teaspoon of the cream cheese filling to the centre of each muffin and use a toothpick to swirl the filling into the batter.

Bake for 18 minutes.

Cool for about 5 minutes and serve warm.

Donuts for Dad

 

It’s almost Father’s Day and if you have a Dad that loves a sweet treat, then this is the place to be because we are making mini donuts for Dad. You can wrap some up on a plate and bring them to Dad for his Father’s Day treat this weekend.

You can use one of those donut baking pans and do them in the oven, but these recipes will work best if you have a mini donut maker like this.

We are making three types of donuts, sour cream (plain), chocolate, and buttermilk spice.

I mixed all of the dry ingredients in separate bowls and then their corresponding wet ingredients in other separate bowls. It makes it a lot easier when you start doing all of your mixing.

The following are the ingredients and instructions for each of the batters.

Sour Cream Donuts:

1 ½ cups of flour

1/3 cup of sugar

1 Tbsp. of baking powder

½ tsp. of salt

½ cup of milk

¼ cup of vegetable oil

¼ cup of sour cream

1 egg

1 tsp. vanilla

Stir all of the dry ingredients together and in a separate bowl mix the wet. Add the dry ingredients to your mixer’s bowl and then beat in the wet ingredients until smooth. Make sure you don’t over mix. 

Set aside.

Chocolate Donuts:

1 ¼ cups of flour

½ cup of cocoa

½ cup of sugar

1 Tbsp. of baking powder

1 egg

¾ cup of buttermilk or see buttermilk recipe below

¼ cup of vegetable oil

1 tsp. vanilla

Stir all of the dry ingredients together and in a separate bowl mix the wet. 

If you don’t have buttermilk on hand, then you can make some up really quick. Just add 2 ¼ tsp. of lemon juice or white vinegar into a glass measuring cup and then add enough milk to equal ¾ cup. Let it stand for 5-10 minutes.

Add the dry ingredients to your mixer’s bowl and then beat in the wet ingredients until smooth. Make sure you don’t over mix. Set aside.

Buttermilk Spice Donuts:

1/3 cup of vegetable oil

1 cup of sugar

2 eggs

1 ¼ cups of buttermilk

½ tsp. of vanilla

2 cups of flour

4 tsp. of baking powder

½ tsp. of baking soda

¼ tsp. salt

1 tsp. cinnamon

Once again mix all of the dry ingredients together. Beat together the oil and eggs and then stir in the buttermilk (follow the above recipe for homemade buttermilk; even though it calls for 1 ¼ cups still make the above amount seen in the Chocolate Donut recipe).

Now add the wet into the dry ingredients and mix until smooth being careful not to over mix.

After making your batter(s), you can now start cooking the donuts. If you have a mini donut maker, be sure to follow the instructions for cooking that comes with it. I preheat mine as according to the instructions and then I brush on a little oil so they don’t stick. I scoop in about a tablespoon of batter into each of the molds and cook for 3-4 minutes. 

Cool the donuts on a wire rack as you continue to bake the rest.

While all the donuts are cooling down, you can make the glazes.

You can put whatever glaze on whatever type of donuts you want. We put a vanilla glaze on some of the sour cream donuts and a chocolate glaze on some too and then we put a chocolate glaze on the chocolate donuts and dusted the buttermilk ones with cinnamon and sugar.

Vanilla Glaze – Melt ¼ cup of butter and then add 1 1/3 cups of icing sugar and stir until well blended. Stir in the vanilla and blend in 1 Tbsp. of hot water.

Chocolate Glaze – Whisk ¾ cups of icing sugar with 2 Tbsp. of cocoa, 2 Tbsp. of half and half, and 1 tsp. of vanilla until well mixed.

To ice/glaze the donuts, we just dipped the tops in the glaze that we wanted so that the tops got completely covered. Depending how thick you make the glaze, you could spread it on with a knife also.

Cinnamon Topping – Just mix 1 cup of sugar with 2 Tbsp. of cinnamon and mix well. We made the buttermilk donuts last and while they were still warm, we brush them with a little bit of melted butter and then dip the tops in the sugar mixture. If you want the entire donut covered, brush the donuts all over with butter and then put your sugar mix in a brown paper bag and toss the donuts in there so that they get covered.

The finished products...

If you don't have a donut maker, but still want to make some donuts for your dad, then try this recipe for mini Snickerdoodle Donut Muffins. We tried it a couple months ago, and it was pretty yummy!