This was NOT supposed to be an investigation...

Over a Sugar Donut Muffin?

I don't know how many times I have seen these cuties being made on your blogs. It's been driving me crazy. Clearly it drove me to finally make them.

Before I start the recipe. I wanted to share something I found curious. I noticed when making it that it said 'baking power.' Being my obsessive-investigative-self, I went to my school site and checked if I already had this recipe. Yup, I did. But it was a little different.

Then I did a food blog search on google using "sugar donut muffins"

TONS of pages of blogs who made these. The cross referencing was all over the place. Mostly Baking Bites was credited for this recipe. Other people were citing their first blog where they found it as a source and THAT blog cited Baking Bites as their source. So very confusing.

Then there were the ingredient differences. Some used milk, some used yogurt and some buttermilk. Some of the muffin pix were perfectly rounded on top...seemingly fluffy inside. Other had a flat top with a crusty edge (obviously too much sugar in the recipe).

My recipe on my school site had a few things a bit different:

1 cup of sugar instead of 3/4 cup
2 cups of flour instead of 1-1/2 cups
1/4 cup + 1 Tbsp of oil instead of 1/4 cup
3/4 cup + 2 Tbsp buttermilk instead of 3/4 cup MILK

My computer/filed copy used only sugar for a coating, my printed version used cinnamon/sugar yet Baking Bites used only sugar. Yet MY recipe had used buttermilk as opposed to the printed one had milk. Funny I was going use buttermilk anyway. BUT it had the SAME spelling error of 'baking power'.

Time to investigate again. Out of the patience I had I viewed about 20 different sites who had the Sugar Donut Muffin recipe. Baking Bites had the spelling error 'baking power' and six other sites did too. Seven other sites who used BB as their source CORRECTED the spelling error. Finally I found where I got my 'different' recipe. Vanilla Sugar was exactly the recipe I had WITH the same 'baking power' SPELLING ERROR, yet she cited no source.

OH, the craziness I made out for myself! HAHA. But it was fun pretending to be a FBI. Food Blog Investigator. LOL

So I am going to give two versions of this fabulous donut muffin. Both had pictures of beautiful rounded tops.

Sugar Donut Muffins
found on Vanilla Sugar

1 cup sugar
1 large egg
2 cups all purpose flour
1 ½ tsp baking power (I didn't correct this)
¼ tsp salt
½ tsp ground nutmeg
¼ cup plus 1 Tbsp vegetable oil
¾ cup plus 2 Tbsp buttermilk
1 tsp vanilla extract

For topping:
4 TB butter, melted
½ 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. Add in all the vegetable oil, all the buttermilk, vanilla extract and mix well.

In a small bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg; add this to the wet mixture.

Divide batter evenly into 12 muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full.

Bake for 15-18 minutes, until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

While muffins are baking, melt butter in one bowl and in another bowl pour in the ½ cup sugar.

When muffins are done, take muffin one by one and dip top of muffin into melted butter then dip into sugar. If, you’re feeling even more creative you can dip all sides of the muffin. I also used cinnamon on half of the muffins. After I was done doing 6 muffins with the plain sugar I added some cinnamon to the remaining sugar and dipped accordingly. Cool on a wire rack.

Sugar Donut Muffins
found on Baking Bites (the recipe I used today)

3/4 cup sugar
1 large egg
1 1/2 cups all purpose flour
2 tsp baking power
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp ground nutmeg
1/4 cup vegetable oil
3/4 cup milk (low fat is fine)
1 tsp vanilla extract

2 tbsp butter, melted
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 10 muffin cups, filling each about 3/4 full.
Bake for 15-18 minutes, until a tester inserted into the center comes out clean.

While muffins are baking, melt butter and pour remaining sugar into a small bowl.
When muffins are done, lightly brush the top of each with some melted butter, remove from the pan and roll in sugar. Cool on a wire rack.

When I feel the craving for this muffin again, I am going to try vanilla sugar's version to see the difference. Of course, the pan you use, your oven heat calibration could also impact your outcome. Regardless....DELICIOUS!

Don't forget to enter my FIRST giveaway, just a quick comment gets you in the running! Last day to enter Tomorrow, Sunday August 30...

Enjoy!