Baked Sugar Donut Muffins

Just a lazy long labor day weekend here at our house.  The girlies wanted me to slave over some cinnamon rolls. I had to think about that one for exactly a nano-second…….NO.

So as not to make the poor starving babies think that I don’t love them, I whipped up some of these little sugared cuties. 

Much much easier than sweating over cinnamon rolls and much much healthier than fried Homemade Donuts, they were a hit!  The ones pictured here are covered with plain white sugar, but cinnamon sugar and powdered sugar are good too.
 



Sugar Donut Muffins

(recipe adapted from Baking Bites)

 



3/4 cup sugar

1 large egg

1 1/2 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/4 cup vegetable oil

3/4 cup milk (low fat is fine)

2 tsp melted butter

1 tsp vanilla                                                                                                     
1/2 cup sugar, for rolling

Preheat oven to 350F. Lightly grease a muffin tin with cooking spray or vegetable oil.  In a large bowl, beat together sugar and egg until light in color.   In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg. Pour into egg mixture and stir to combine. Pour in vegetable oil, milk and vanilla extract.  Divide batter evenly into a mini-muffin pan. (Recipe will also fill about 10 regular muffin cups ¾ full.) Bake for 15 to 18 minutes.  When muffins are done, lightly brush the top of each with some melted butter, remove from pan, and roll around in remaining sugar.  
   

Makes 24 mini-muffins.

Looks good, no?  Okay then, how about dipped in vanilla icing?

Everyday is a Holiday....Christmas Sugar Cookies 1951

One of the last times I was at my grandma’s house she was purging a bookshelf of old cookbooks.  Way back when, places like the bank and the electric company would give out little recipe booklets to their customers for Christmas when you came in to pay your bill.   Now we don’t even get a “thank-you” email when we use Web BillPay….how rude.  Wouldn’t it just light up your day if a happy lady from the water department came knocking with your Christmas cookbook? 

My Grandma got this one from the gas company….

It is positively delightful.  Women like Esther Weber, Edna Kniffen, and Louise McDill created and perfected the recipes within.  The booklet says they are “home economists”.  They look like they know their stuff. 

Jelly Tots, Snow Caps, and Christmas Coffee Logs are neatly organized on the pages.  Hmmmm.  Coffee log?  I think I’ll pass on that one.  But right below the Raisin Spice Yummies, were Golden Refrigerator Sugar Cookies

I made them.  I made them just like Thelma Bly told me to, and then she wished me a prosperous 1952. 

Golden Refrigerator Sugar Cookies
(Recipe also adapted from Our Best Bites)

 

Ingredients:

·        One cup real butter

·        One cup sugar

·        One egg

·        1 ½ tsp vanilla extract ( I used almond extract because it is much better)

·        3 cups of flour sifted

·        1 ½ teaspoon baking powder

·        ½ teaspoon salt

Beat the butter and sugar together with a whisk.  (If I had a Kitchen-Aid I could just turn it on here….PLEASE Santa…bring me a Kitchen-Aid!)  Add eggs and almond extract.  Mix.

In a different bowl, sift together the dry ingredients.  (Don’t whine, just sift it.)  Slowly add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and combine until you have a soft dough.  At this point, you are supposed to chill it for 2 hours.  I roll out the dough between parchment paper to chill, (for just an hour) and then it is just ready to cut when I take it out.   Either way, you roll it and cut it in whatever shapes you want.  This time I used small stars for my vision of cute Christmas stars.

Bake for 8 to 11 minutes or just until the sides begin to brown.  You may need to cook them longer if you make the cookies thick.

These cookies are buttery and delicious all by themselves.  Or you can use icing on them like I did.  Don’t make your own icing or frosting or whatever….use this one!

Toba Garrett’s Glace’ Icing

Ingredients:

·        One pound powdered sugar

·        3/8 cup milk

·        3/8 cup white corn syrup

·        1 teaspoon almond extract (the extract is optional but I think it makes the cookies gourmet!)

In a mixing bowl, mix the sugar and milk first. Add corn syrup just until combined.  You could add a different extract for a different flavor if you wanted.  Add color if desired.  I ended up adding about one teaspoon more of milk to get it the consistency to dry flat on my cookie and make it easier to pipe on.  If you add too much it will ooze off of your cookie but, just add more powdered sugar if you need to.  Once dry, you can stack cookies on top of each other without them sticking together.  I first iced my cookies with white, let them dry overnight, and then the girls and I decorated them the next morning.  It was some work but well worth it! 

A message from Christmas Recipes 1951 to you:

Why not keep the Christmas spirit all the year by baking a new Christmas cookie recipe for your family each week?  They’ll love it!  We, in home service, hope you will have as much fun in making our recipes as we have had in preparing them.  A Very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

 

Here’s where I am linking this week!