Donuts AND Muffins? Oh Yeah !

I decided to combine this post and share with you two recently tested recipes that both turned out great. Both are cakey, rich and delicious. Both recipes deliver.

Sick kids = comfort food. Sure, chicken soup, grilled cheese....all of that comes to mind. But what about sick kids with a sweet tooth? That is where these two recipes come into play.

When I think of comfort food I think of cinnamon, apples, chocolate and peanut butter. No, not all combined together but rather paired up.

So with a household now coming down with some kind of winter virus, it was time to haul out the muffin tin and donut pan. First I started off with an apple cinnamon donut recipe that I found on Barbara Bakes. I love baked donuts not just for the sake that they are healthier but rather it keeps me away from hot oil; safety first !

These donuts are super moist and overflowing with apple flavor. I mean it - they contain apple cider, dried apple and applesauce. A triple dose of the good stuff!

I did adhere to Barbara's original recipe and only changed one thing - I dipped the tops of the still warm baked donuts in melted butter before dipping them into the cinnamon sugar mix. Amazing.

Barbara wasn't sure if these would be still good the next day though she seemed pretty confident they would be. Let me confirm that YES, they are amazing the next day. These do have more of a muffin texture to them and in fact you could bake them in muffin tins if you don't have a donut pan but whatever you do, make a batch !

RECIPE: Baked Apple Cinnamon Sugar Donuts

Next I whipped up 12 rich chocolate and peanut butter chip muffins. I used the chocolate muffin recipe from the HummingBird Bakery cookbook (also posted here on Lemon Drop) but changed it up slightly. I used Valrhona cocoa powder and 4 ounces of Ghiradelli dark chocolate chips. The final step is to fold in 1 cup of Reese peanut butter baking chips. That's it! You can take a lovely dark chocolate muffin recipe and really change it up by adding one simple ingredient at the end: Peanut Butter Baking Chips. How easy is that?

BASIC CHOCOLATE MUFFIN RECIPE: Hummingbird Bakery Chocolate Muffins

ENJOY !