Cinnamon Sugar Donut Muffins

10 Servings
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes

Cinnamon Sugar Donut Muffins are sweet and delicious, with a spiced soft donut texture dipped in butter and coated with cinnamon sugar.

I love easy kid friendly dessert recipes like Easy Banana BreadEdible Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough, and Cake Mix Cookies, and these cinnamon sugar donut muffins are a huge hit with kids and adults alike!

Donut MuffinsCINNAMON SUGAR DONUT MUFFINS

This donut muffin recipe is super simple and has a fast baking time so you don’t have to wait forever to enjoy your muffins. They’re great for grabbing on the way out the door for a quick breakfast (if you want them to be completely mess free make them with icing instead of cinnamon sugar), or you can enjoy them with some coffee for a sit-down brunch with your friends.

Donut Icing is easy enough, you can find a good recipe on my Baked Cinnamon Roll Donut Recipe!

If you love donuts and muffins equally, there’s a way that you don’t have to pick one. Make yourself some yummy Cinnamon Sugar Donut Muffins, and I’m sure you’ll have a new family favorite on your hands. If you love brunch pastries, you should also try Krispy Kreme Glazed Donuts and Apple Fritter Rings.

You can serve these muffins still warm from the oven or enjoy them chilled from the fridge, they’re just as delicious either way. I would recommend trying them with fairly strong coffee, since the nutmeg and cinnamon on top of them compliments the bitter flavor really well.

HOW TO MAKE CINNAMON SUGAR DONUT MUFFINS

  • Preheat oven to 375 degrees F and spray a muffin tin with cooking spray.
  • In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients, sugar, milk, egg, and melted butter until combined.
  • Fill 10 of the muffin tins 2/3 of the way full.
  • Bake for 18-20 minutes or until golden brown.
  • Combine sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.
  • After muffins have cooled enough to handle, dip each muffin top in melted unsalted butter, then in the cinnamon sugar mixture.

Cinnamon Sugar Donut Muffins with cinnamon sugar topping

 

VARIETIES OF CINNAMON SUGAR DONUT MUFFINS

  • Spices: If you want a more complex flavor on the top of your muffins, you can add a dash of nutmeg, brown sugar or vanilla extract to the sugar and cinnamon mixture.
  • Mini Muffins: Divide the batter into a mini muffin tin for adorable little muffins that make perfect, sharable coffee snacks. You can also experiment with different toppings on a single batch.
  • Dessert: Just like a cupcake, you can serve up these muffins with a side of ice cream for a delicious, sweet dessert. A scoop or two will do you though, since the muffin is so sugary to begin with.
  • Apple Cider: Swap your milk for apple cider to make these a fall themed donut, they’re DELICIOUS this way!

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

“Muffin” is a weird word, and *nothing else really sounds like “donut,” so where do these words come from? Here’s some fun trivia to tell the kids while you eat these donut muffins together.

  • Muffin: The first time the word was ever written down was 1705 and it was spelled “moofin.” People aren’t really sure where the word came from, but it may be from the French word “moufflet,” which means a bread that is soft. It may have also come from the German word “muffe,” which refers to a small cake.
  • Donut: The name comes from “dough nut,” which the author Washington Irving first wrote down in his 1809 cook “The History of New York.” What he was describing was a pastry called an “oliebol” (which literally means “oil ball”), a traditional dutch pastry. About a century later, another author named George W. Peck first wrote the word “donut” in a short story he called “Peck’s Bad Boy and his Pa.” 

HOW LONG ARE CINNAMON SUGAR DONUT MUFFINS GOOD?

  • Serve: Your muffins will stay good at room temperature for up to 3 days before they get really stale
  • Store: You can keep extra muffins in the fridge for up to 1 week. After that, they will get too mushy and loose a lot of flavor.
  • Freeze: If kept in an airtight container you can keep these muffins for up to 3 months.

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Cinnamon Sugar Donut Muffins

Cinnamon Sugar Donut Muffins are sweet and delicious, with a spiced soft donut texture dipped in butter and coated with cinnamon, butter.
Yield 10 Servings
Prep Time 10 minutes
Cook Time 15 minutes
Total Time 25 minutes
Course Breakfast
Cuisine American
Author Sabrina Snyder

Ingredients
 

  • 3/4 cup sugar
  • 1/3 cup unsalted butter , melted
  • 1 large egg
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
  • 3/4 cup whole milk
  • 1 3/4 cup flour
  • 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

Donut Muffin Topping

  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon
  • 4 tablespoons unsalted butter , melted

Instructions

  • Preheat oven to 375 degrees and spray a muffin tin with baking spray.
  • In a large bowl add the sugar, melted butter, egg, cinnamon, nutmeg and milk, whisking it well together.
  • Add in the flour and baking powder and whisk until just combined.
  • Bake for 18-20 minutes or until golden brown.
  • Stir together sugar and cinnamon in a bowl and melt remaining butter in a second bowl.
  • Once muffins are done baking let them cool for 10 minutes, then dip the tops in melted butter, then in cinnamon sugar mixture.

Nutrition

Calories: 177kcal | Carbohydrates: 26g | Protein: 1g | Fat: 8g | Saturated Fat: 5g | Cholesterol: 21mg | Sodium: 6mg | Potassium: 58mg | Fiber: 1g | Sugar: 17g | Vitamin A: 251IU | Calcium: 31mg | Iron: 1mg
Keyword: Cinnamon Sugar, Cinnamon Sugar Donut Muffins, Donut Muffins

About the Author: Sabrina Snyder

Sabrina is a professionally trained Private Chef of over 10 years with ServSafe Manager certification in food safety. She creates all the recipes here on Dinner, then Dessert, fueled in no small part by her love for bacon.

Sabrina Snyder is a professionally trained personal and private chef of over 10 years who is the creator and developer of all the recipes on Dinner, then Dessert.

She is also the author of the cookbook Dinner, then Dessert – Satisfying Meals Using Only 3, 5 or 7 Ingredients, published by Harper Collins.

She started Dinner, then Dessert as a business in her office as a lunch service for her coworkers who admired her lunches before going to culinary school and becoming a full time personal chef and private chef.

As a personal chef Sabrina would cook for families one day a week and cook their entire week of dinners. All grocery shopping, cooking and cleaning was done along with instructions on reheating. As a private chef she cooked for private parties and cooked in family homes in the evenings for families on a nightly basis after working as a personal chef during the day.

Sabrina has been certified as a ServSafe Manager since 2007 and was a longstanding member of the USPCA Personal Chef Association including being on the board of the Washington DC Chapter of Chefs in the US Personal Chef Association when they won Chapter of the year.

As a member of the community of food website creators Sabrina Snyder has spoken at many conferences regarding her experiences as a food writer including the Indulge Food Conference, Everything Food Conference, Haven Food Conference and IACP Annual Food Professionals Conference.

Sabrina lives with her family in sunny California.

Dinner, then Dessert, Inc. owns the copyright on all images and text and does not allow for its original recipes and pictures to be reproduced anywhere other than at this site unless authorization is given. If you enjoyed the recipe and would like to publish it on your own site, please re-write it in your own words, and link back to my site and recipe page. Read my disclosure and copyright policy. This post may contain affiliate links.

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Comments

  1. The muffins were ok. It called for 1/2 tsp of nutmeg and I put half that in and found that all I could taste was the nutmeg.

  2. I found thisrecipe to be weird because itlacked key ingredients like egg . The amounts are not of one that would make a good cake but tried it anyway. Only yielded 6 not 12 and the texture is super heavy and not fluffly like a doughnut or a muffin. So i dont recomend it. Maybe ifadding 2 eggs, half a cup more of flour, some salt, and some baking soda…

    1. I just went back to the kitchen and retested this recipe. I’ve edited the recipe card and hopefully you enjoy it. Thanks for letting me know it was off.

  3. These were good, but there is no way it makes 12. I doubled the recipe because I wanted 24 and still had to make up one more batch to get 24. Super easy and good though.

    1. I’ve adjusted the measurements after retesting, so it should make 10 now. Thanks for your patience.

  4. I’m really disappointed with this recipe. It does not make 12 muffins. It probably barely makes 6. Not sure why you would post a recipe that has different directions that are inconsistent. Waste of ingredients.

    1. I’m so sorry you had issues with this recipe. I went back to the kitchen to retest and have made some adjustments to the measurements. I hope you will be willing to give them another try. Thanks for the feedback.

  5. They taste good. I don’t quite understand, though. I saw the other comment about the recipe and the instructions not matching. Everything seems to match now (well the instructions actually never say how many cups to fill, but the serving size is still 12), but with the quantity of ingredients, I don’t see how this recipe can make 12 regular-sized muffins as you have pictured. I made them anyway, just smaller and there were only 10. Tasted good. Just a little confused…

  6. Wait, these taste like a donut but are not fried? I WANT! These are perfect for fall – and I have no baking plans for the weekend yet!

  7. Yum, yum, yum!!!! These remind me of the “princess puffs” my grandmother would make me when I was having tea parties in her pantry!

  8. Anything with cinnamon will always and forever get my vote! These look amazing and I like that I can get the donut experience without having to eat something fried! LOVE!

  9. I have a question… The nutritional info. states 12 servings but in your instructions say fill 6 muffin cups. It states 400 degrees but further down it says set oven temp. at 375 degrees. Ingredients says mix melted butter with sugar milk and egg but your ingredient list doesn’t mention adding an egg. I’m confused.

    1. Sorry Claudia, that was written before I did a final recipe test, I baked this recipe 10 times before posting it. I updated all the info to match. Thank you so much for catching that! 🙂