Of ponuts & punchkins
By Tali Simon | February 21, 2012
Oh, wait. Don’t tell me.
…You don’t know what ponuts and punchkins are?
So it’s like this: You start with a pumpkin spice mini muffin. I mean, it’s pretty healthy. Whole wheat and everything.
Only then you roll it in melted butter. And sugar.
Hello, sugar high! (Make that, “Helloooooooo, sugar high!!!!!!!”)
It’s all at once a mini muffin and a donut hole. Which means it’s like a munchkin from Dunkin Donuts. Which means you could legitimately call it a ponut or a punchkin. Or both.
Everyone on board with this? Excellent.
There’s a reason I’m sharing these ponuts with you today. It’s my brother Z’s 17th birthday, and if we lived in the same city, I’d be surprising him with them.
Back in the old days, when I still lived in Maryland and when we had a kosher Dunkin Donuts some 20 minutes from the house, Z and I shared a love of all things Dunkin. The coffee drinks, the 600-calorie muffins as big as your head, the donuts, the egg and cheese sandwiches on a bagel. (Well, the egg & cheese was really his thing. Never quite did the trick for me.)
For a couple years in a row, I kept up the tradition of buying him a special Dunkin lunch to take to school on his birthday.
Such are the advantages of being an older sister with a (used) car.
Z, I’d bring you a plate of ponuts today if I could.
In the meantime, I, um, hope you like the pictures.
Slightly adapted from Two Peas & Their Pod
Yield: 24
Ingredients
Donuts:
- cooking spray, to grease muffin pan
- 1¾ cups whole wheat flour
- 2 tsp baking powder
- ¼ teaspoon salt
- ½ tsp cinnamon
- ½ tsp nutmeg
- ½ tsp allspice
- pinch ground cloves
- 1/3 cup canola oil
- ½ cup light brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- ½ cup pumpkin puree (see pumpkin chummus for details)
- ½ cup milk
Coating:
- 4 Tbsp unsalted butter, melted
- 1/3 cup granulated sugar, plus more as needed
- 1 Tbsp cinnamon or cocoa powder, plus more as needed
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 F/180 C. Spray a 24-cup mini muffin tin with cooking spray and set aside. (I always use paper muffin cups, but because you’ll be rolling these muffins in butter and sugar after baking, it doesn’t make sense here.)
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice and cloves. In a separate (large) bowl whisk together oil, sugar, egg, vanilla, pumpkin and milk until smooth. Add dry ingredients to wet ingredients and mix until just combined.
3. Divide batter evenly among muffin cups. Bake for 12-14 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean.
4. Remove muffins from oven and cool for 2 minutes. As they cool, melt butter in a small saucepan and pour into a small bowl. Combine granulated sugar with cinnamon or cocoa powder in a second small bowl. (I was out of cinnamon, so I used plain sugar for some and a sugar/cocoa mix for the rest.)
5. Dip each muffin in melted butter, then roll in sugar to coat. Serve room temp or straight from the fridge.
3 Comments
Brina on February 21, 2012 at 8:40 pm.
I’m trying this for dessert this shabbos thanks.
Tali Simon on February 21, 2012 at 10:04 pm.
I’d love to hear how they come out!
pnina on February 21, 2012 at 9:48 pm.
no way!!