What is it about powdered sugar that too much is never too much?

You know I don’t like things over the top sweet, but these Powdered Sugar Jelly Doughnut Muffins could be double or triple dipped in powdered sugar and that would be “A-okay” with me.

French Crullers are my all time favorite and my dad would always make sure there was one or two of those in the box when he brought doughnuts home for breakfast. But then there were those Hostess Powdered Mini Donettes…if there was a bag of those around, then my brothers and sisters and I would devour them, all the while making sure we covered each other with sugar “accidentally” blown off the “donette.”  I haven’t had those in a million years and I’m sure the list of ingredients is longer than I would find acceptable these days. But powdered sugar doughnuts?  Still love ’em.

My son’s been asking for a different packaged mini muffin treat lately and I keep telling him I’ll just make him some at home.  That’s been an unfilled request for a couple of months now and every time we are at the store he tries to throw a box of the mini muffins into the cart.  So that lead us here. We’re gonna knock that mini muffin and powdered sugar doughnut item off the list today with Powdered Sugar Jelly Doughnut Muffins.

I used the delicious recipe for Cinnamon Sugar Doughnut Muffins as the base, filled them with raspberry preserves and then rolled them in powdered sugar while they were warm.  Let’s take a minute and talk about the filling process.  I originally thought I’d fill them after baking just like a jelly doughnut, but was worried that they might be too dense to accept the filling. So I tried a few different options.  Here’s the low down:

• You can drop half your batter in the cup, top with a spoonful of jelly/jam preserves, then spoon remaining batter on top.  Depending upon how much jelly you use, when you break the doughnut muffin open, you may only have a light layer of jelly or the jelly may break through the bottom of the muffin or run into the sides if you don’t keep it in the middle. Some worked out great, some not so great. Some just looked like a pretty streusel layer. (Let’s just say many little doughnut muffins were sacrificed to find one that I wanted to photograph.)
• To prevent that, I also tried using a long piping tip to keep the jelly in the middle and even pushed it down into the batter more.  Similar issues, but still fine. I really just wanted a nice amount of jelly filling in the center.
• After they were baked, I found that I could pipe jelly into the center with no issues. Turns out, my worry that they would be too dense was unfounded. Piping after baking gave me the real result I wanted…a good amount of jelly filling that you could definitely taste (and see) when you bit into the doughnut muffin.  I had to hedge my bets when I made these and do the pre-filling, but now that I’ve tried all of the options, I’ll be filling them post baking next time, just like a “real” jelly doughnut. It’s also faster than trying to, oh so carefully, spoon jelly into the center of 48 muffin cups.

With the Cinnamon Sugar Doughnut Muffins, I dipped the tops in melted butter before rolling in cinnamon sugar.  I could have dipped these in melted butter then rolled them twice in the powdered sugar.  That would certainly have given me that really white and opaque covering of powdered sugar that I loved so much in the Hostess Donettes.  It also would have had a richer taste.  I decided to go a bit lighter this time and just go with a light coating playing off the warmth of the muffin to help the sugar stick.  I did keep the shaking bag with leftover sugar in it if anyone (me?) wanted to send their muffin back for another dip.  (I did say that too much powdered sugar is never too much, right?) These are melt in your mouth delicious!

But hey, they all tasted delicious regardless of how I filled them or coated them.  I know had I not put a consumption quota on for my family that they could have polished off the entire batch in one sitting. I’m not kidding.

These little doughnut muffins are versatile.  Fill them before or after, fill them with your jelly/jam/preserves of choice, or don’t fill them at all and roll ’em in butter, sugar…whatever you like.  It’s all good.

Powdered Sugar Jelly Doughnut Muffins.  It’s a mini muffin that tastes like a powdered sugar cake doughnut.

Consider the jelly a bonus.

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