Description

These Donut Pumpkin Muffins combine the best of both worlds – tender, spiced muffins with a cinnamon-sugar coating that tastes like your favorite carnival treat!

Ingredients

Scale

For the Muffins (Makes About 18 Muffins):

1¾ cups all-purpose flour
1 tablespoon pumpkin pie spice (or homemade: 4 tsp cinnamon, 2 tsp ground ginger, 1 tsp cloves, ½ tsp nutmeg, ½ tsp allspice)
1 teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
1 (15 oz) can pumpkin purée
1 cup granulated sugar
½ cup packed brown sugar
2 large eggs
½ cup vegetable oil (or canola, avocado, or unsweetened applesauce)
1 tablespoon vanilla extract

For the Cinnamon-Sugar Coating:

¾ cup granulated sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon
¼ cup melted butter (for brushing)

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Instructions

Preheat your oven to 375°F and grease your muffin tin. I use butter because I’m fancy like that, but cooking spray works fine too.
Mix the dry stuff: Whisk your flour, pumpkin spice, baking soda, and salt in a medium bowl. Make sure there aren’t any sneaky clumps hiding in there.
Wet ingredients time: In your big bowl, whisk together pumpkin, both sugars, eggs, oil, and vanilla. It should look like gorgeous orange cake batter at this point.
The crucial step: Add the dry ingredients to the wet and fold – don’t beat, don’t whisk, just gently fold until it barely comes together. Seriously, lumps are your friend here. Overmixing turns these into hockey pucks.
Bake away: Fill your muffin cups about ¾ full and bake for 18-20 minutes. They’re done when they spring back when you poke them and a toothpick comes out mostly clean.
Cool for a hot minute: Let them sit in the pan for 10 minutes. I know it’s torture, but trust me.
The magic happens: Brush each warm muffin with melted butter, then roll in that cinnamon sugar mixture. Get messy – it’s worth it.

Notes

Don’t overfill those cups – ¾ full is perfect unless you want muffin tops taking over your kitchen. Even with paper liners, I still hit the pan with cooking spray because there’s nothing worse than beautiful muffins that won’t come out. Here’s something weird – these actually taste better the next day when everything has had time to get cozy together.

Prep Time: 15 minutes
Cook Time: 20 minutes
Category: Dessert
Method: Baking
Cuisine: American

Nutrition

Serving Size: 1 muffin
Calories: 245
Sugar: 28g
Sodium: 185mg
Fat: 7g
Saturated Fat: 2g
Unsaturated Fat: 5g
Trans Fat: 0g
Carbohydrates: 42g
Fiber: 2g
Protein: 4g
Cholesterol: 25mg