Chocolate Doughnut Muffins

My entire family adores doughnut (or donut) muffins. They are cake-like and the buttered/sugar topping makes these taste just like a sugared doughnut. In addition to cocoa, these ones have a little bit of nutmeg and cinnamon thrown in too.

Some like to bake them without muffin liners and coat the entire muffin in butter before dipping in sugar but this doesn't make them exactly portable. The kids like to take these to school so baking them in muffin liners just works better for us.

I have made these Donut Muffins with Vanilla Cinnamon Glaze before and they alone are superb. I figured why not try chocolate too? Cannot go wrong with chocolate.

LET'S GO!

Here they are fresh out of the oven

Recipe adapted from Grace's Sweet Life

RECIPE:

WHAT YOU NEED

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/8 teaspoon salt
1/4 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
3/4 cup sugar plus 2 tablespoons
1 large egg
1/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1/4 cup milk (2% works fine, or whole)
1/2 cup plus 2 tablespoons heavy cream (35%)
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2-3 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted, for brushing onto baked tops
1/2 cup fine granulated sugar for dipping muffin tops

MAKE IT

PREHEAT oven to 350° F.
LINE muffin tins with paper liners Lightly grease a standard muffin tin with cooking spray, or using a pastry brush, coat muffin cups with vegetable oil.
IN MEDIUM BOWL, sift together first 4 ingredients. Whisk in nutmeg and cinnamon.
IN LARGE BOWL, beat eggs and sugar MED speed 2-3 minutes.
ADD 1/3 dry ingredients to egg/sugar mixture. Mix just until combined. REPEAT pattern ending with flour.
ADD oil, milk, cream and vanilla extract beating until combined. There may be tiny lumps in the batter but this is fine.
FILL muffin cups 3/4 full.
BAKE 15-20 minutes - toothpick inserted in center should come out clean.
LET COOL 2-3 MIN in pan then move to cooling rack
MELT butter
POUR sugar into a low level bowl which makes it easier to dip the tops into the sugar
WITH PASTRY BRUSH, brush butter over tops
DIP muffin tops into sugar
LET COOL completely on cooling rack