Baking

Pumpkin Maple butter swirled Donut Muffins

I love donuts but no longer eat them often. One of the first recipes I ever tried making on my own (back when I was in 7th grade) was a donut recipe and also have a great yeasted donut recipe that I have posted on the blog, but its been a while that I have made them at home, for the fear that I will end up eating a good portion of them.

For people who don’t want to take out their frying pans and indulge in donuts, I am sharing this recipe for Pumpkin Maple Butter Swirled Donut muffins today on the blog. Topped with melted butter and cinnamon sugar, they combine the taste of donuts, but in a baked muffin form. Its a win-win situation for donut lovers who are watching their weight, but still want the occasional carbs aka people like me!

I had developed this recipe in collaboration with Sprouts and their newly launched line of pumpkin products and you can also find the recipe along with other mouthwatering recipes on their website . Since it’s still pumpkin spice season I thought I will share it here on the blog, in case you missed it there.

If you have a Sprouts close to you, I highly recommend their maple pumpkin butter for these. Its just adds to the flavor of the donut muffins. The maple butter is also great on toast, or on these pumpkin maple butter cheesecake bars recipe that I shared a few weeks back. If you do not live close to a Sprouts, despair not. You can still make these and skip using it. You can also get creative and use homemade preserve or nutella or any other flavored butter for the swirl. Share results if you do decide to substitute.

I adapted this recipe from here, but since I made quite a few changes it was only on the third attempt that I got it right. Thankfully, I had taste testers to get them off my hand each time I tried it and eventually developed a recipe I liked. Substituting half of the butter with applesauce and replacing half of the all purpose flour with whole wheat flour makes these donut muffins even better, since you can feel a tad less guilty eating them.

For those of you wondering why I haven’t posted the last two Tuesdays on GMT, its because I have a lot of pending recipes and am trying to work through that backlog. I will still post a recipe for GMT on and off, but in the coming few weeks I might not be as regular with it. Hopefully once I manage to take care of a substantial amount of the pending recipes, I will start posting on GMT again every Tuesday.

For now, enjoy these. Happy Wednesday!

Pumpkin Maple butter swirled Donut Muffins

Ingredients

¼ cup butter, at room temperature
¼ cup Sprouts pumpkin spice applesauce
½ cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup brown sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1.5 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. baking soda
1 tsp. vanilla
1 tsp. ground cinnamon
pinch nutmeg
¾ tsp. salt
1 ½ cups all purpose flour
1 cup whole wheat flour
¾ cup milk, room temeperature
¼ cup Sprouts Organic pumpkin spice apple cider
¼ cup Sprouts maple pumpkin butter
Topping
3 Tbsp. melted butter
4 Tbsp. cinnamon sugar

Instructions

Preheat oven to 425 F.
Grease a muffin pan.
Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl. Set aside.
Measure the milk and cider and combine
Cream the butter with the sugar for a bit. Then add the pumpkin applesauce and cream for few more minutes.
Add eggs one at a time, scraping the sides before the next addition.
Add the vanilla.
Stir the flour mix into the creamed butter, alternating with the milk in three additions, starting and ending with the flour.
Spoon batter into the pans. I use an ice cream scoop. Fill the cups almost full- that ensure a nice dome on top.
Put 1 tsp dollops of the maple pumpkin butter in center of each muffin batter and swirl with a tooth pick.
Bake 15-17 minutes, or till pale golden and toothpick in the center comes out clean. It takes 16 minutes in mine.
Remove from oven and let cool in pan for 5 minutes. Remove from pan and place on wire rack
Brush melted butter on the tops and dip in a bowl with the cinnamon sugar in it.
Let cool.