Cinnamon Fluff and Doughnut Muffins: Doughnut taste without the frying

Each of my vintage recipe boxes contain at least one version of the ever-popular fried doughnut, but I also came across a few baked versions that are excellent substitutes. Cinnamon Fluff is doughnut turned coffee cake. I know you’ll like the moist firm texture and the crusty topping. Donut muffins have the same cake doughnut crumb and moist center of doughnut holes but you get the fun of dipping them in a cinnamon-sugar topping. Enjoy!

Cinnamon Fluff, Donna’s recipe: From Recipes Aplenty, Company 20, Jefferson, Maryland, 1982. This recipe goes way back.

• ¼ cup shortening (substitute butter)
• ¾ cup sugar
• ½ teaspoon salt
• 1 egg
• 2 ½ cup flour
• 2 ½ teaspoon baking powder

Cream butter, sugar and salt. Add egg; beat well. Sift dry ingredients; add alternately with milk. Put in 2 greased pie or two 8” inch cake pans. (Line with parchment paper).

Top with the following mixture.

• 3-4 Tablespoons butter (the original recipe called for ¼ cup shortening, scant)
• ¾ cup sugar
• 1/3 cup flour
• 2 teaspoon cinnamon

Mix together until crumbly. Bake at 375 degrees about 20 minutes.

Serve warm!

Ever heard of French Breakfast Puffs? They’re also a variation of doughnuts turned muffin, from the 1940s.

Doughnut Muffins from allrecipes.com, 2015

My son-in-law, Brian, found this on the internet and gave it to me to try. Easy to make, delicious and no leftovers. It’s a keeper.

•  ½ cup white sugar
• ¼ cup margarine, melted
• ¾ teaspoon ground nutmeg
• ½ cup milk
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ¼ cup margarine, melted
• ½ cup white sugar
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees F (190 degrees C). Grease 24 min-muffin cups. Mix ½ cup sugar, ¼ cup margarine, and nutmeg in a large bowl. Stir in the milk, then mix in the baking powder and flour until just combined. Fill the prepared mini muffin cups about half full. Bake in the preheated oven until the tops are lightly golden, 15-20 minutes.

While muffins are baking, place ¼ cup melted margarine in a bowl. (You can substitute butter, of course)  In a separate bowl, mix together ½ cup sugar with the cinnamon. Remove muffins from their cups, dip each muffin in the melted margarine, and roll in the sugar-cinnamon mixture. Let cool and serve.

I also came across Cinnamon Biscuits. Make biscuits as usual but brush the unbaked tops with butter and then sprinkle with a mixture of 2 teaspoons of sugar and ¼ teaspoon cinnamon.

Jamie Bowders, Still cooking on the Mountain, 2010

Doughnuts in Rhyme, Feasting with Saint Francis, Turlock, CA

• One cup sugar, one cup milk,
• Two eggs beaten fine as silk,
• Salt and nutmeg (lemons will do),
• Of baking powder teaspoon two;
• Lightly stir the flour in,
• Roll on pie board not too thin;
• Drop with care the doughy things
• Into fat that swiftly swells
• Evenly the spongy cells;
• Watch with care the time for turning,
• Fry them brown, just short of burning.
• Roll in sugar, serve when cool,
• This is a never-failing rule.

This is an unidentified recipe from the Old Yellow Church Cookbook of Manheim