Glazed Doughnut Muffins
Thursday, August 26, 2010 
From time to time I get a hankering for the type of cake doughnut that you can find nearly anywhere in the US. After tackling cannoli, I am probably brave enough by now to try my hand at homemade doughnuts (the common link being the fact that both are fried), but I never have. The fact that these muffins promised doughnut taste without the frying component convinced me to try out the recipe. I whipped them up pretty quickly one Friday afternoon late in my pregnancy when my outings were short and few and I just couldn't bear to watch another BBC Jane Austen film adaptation.
The verdict? No, these do not taste exactly like doughnuts, but they are much better than a similar recipe I tried a few years ago from the 1997 version of the Joy of Cooking that used a cinnamon sugar topping. They are dense and moist, I like the cinnamon / nutmeg combination and while the glaze is very nice, I think the muffins could stand alone without it. The recipe can be found here on the My Baking Addition blog.
The recipe yielded more muffins that two adults could (or should) consume over the course of a few days, and so, not being one to waste anything, I popped several of them in the freezer to be eaten at a later date. Post-baby delivery, I was running around one morning and needed to eat something quickly in order to take some medicine. One of these doughnut muffins seemed like the perfect solution.
So I literally threw a muffin on a plate and into the microwave, hit the defrost button and went off to change a diaper. BIG MISTAKE...in the time it took to switch a soiled nappy for a new one, I had effectively transformed a muffin into a lump of coal. You see, instead of turning the knob to the lowest defrost setting, I had accidentally turned it to the highest, as in the setting reserved for entire frozen chickens or racks of lamb...
Not only had I managed to incinerate a perfectly good muffin, but my kitchen smelled like burnt toast for 2 days, I had to throw away a plate and in the chaos I completely forget to take my medicine, which was the whole point of heating up that muffin in the first place. At least the baby was comfortable in her new diaper.
Lessons learned, other than that you can't heat up a single frozen muffin on the defrost setting reserved for large hunks of animal protein?:
1. Don't try to multi-task when you've only had two hours of sleep, especially when one of your tasks involves an electrical device that you hardly ever use
2. Out of respect for the food you eat and those who have to share a living space with you, it's generally a good idea to learn how to properly use the settings on a microwave instead of just winging it -- it's not a high school civics exam, it's a microwave and it could burn your house down...
Reader Comments (2)
i can not believe what all you have been able to pull off with being pregnant/motherhood. i am very proud of you.
Thanks Mom! It's no small feat to change a diaper and make a charcoal briquette at the same time -- I'm quite proud of this accomplishment!