Strawberry Shortcake Doughnut Muffins | Strawberry Muffin Recipe (2024)

These Strawberry Shortcake Doughnut Muffins make a great unique dessert recipe. Delicious cinnamon sugar doughnut cakes are topped with vanilla buttercream frosting and fresh strawberries. Bon appetit!

So excited to be participating in a fun blog party today all about doughnuts!! It’s always a good day to celebrate doughnuts. :) A few weekends ago tons of fabulous food bloggers from all over met up in Austin, Texas for the big BlogHer Food conference. I think at some point while we were there, we all made our way to the Gourdough’s Gourmet Doughnut Truck. I kept seeing tweets and Instagrams about it all weekend, lol! They served up soft, fluffy, delicious doughnuts made fresh to order and covered them with the most decadent and indulgent toppings imaginable. See a few photos I took of my favorite combinations here!

Today I am teaming up with a few of the sweet food bloggers I got to meet in Austin, and we are each recreating our favorite Gourdough’s Doughnut and sharing the recipes with you so you can enjoy the deliciousness of Gourdough’s without ever leaving home.

While they definitely had some indulgently fun and decadent combinations, my favorite Gourdough’s doughnuts were the pure and simple ones, like the Miss Shortcake; a perfectly golden doughnut topped with sweet vanilla frosting and fresh strawberries. Today I am sharing my spin on this favorite: The Strawberry Shortcake Doughnut Muffin. It’s a muffin that tastes like a doughnut!

I made doughnut muffins for exactly six reasons:

1. I wanted something that would stay fresh and still be good if you wanted to share. Fried doughnuts like the ones at Gourdough’s are really best eaten right away, fresh out of the oil. These doughnut muffins are just as fabulous even the next day.
2. I could’ve made baked doughnuts, but I don’t have a doughnut pan. I also didn’t want you guys to have to buy any kind of special pan either! However, if you *do* have a doughnut pan, I would totally recommend trying this recipe in it. I bet it would be totally fun!
3. These doughnut muffins are just freaking amazing. End of story. They’re like little bites of gosh darn heaven. I can’t get over how awesome they are. You need to try one as soon as humanly possible. Make them happen, friends.
4. Did I mention they were dipped in brown butter and rolled in cinnamon sugar?
5. They’re made in mini muffin tin, so they’re kinda like doughnut holes.
6. They’re small so you can eat more of them. ;)

How to Make Strawberry Shortcake Doughnut Muffins

Let’s make these happen! Just a few basic ingredients are all you’ll need. Butter, baking powder, eggs, flour, milk, and sugar. Be sure you use baking powder and not baking soda. Since there’s nothing acidic like buttermilk or lemon in these muffins, there’s nothing to counteract the baking soda, so they would turn out very, very bitter if you used baking soda. Weird, huh?

Start by beating 1.5 sticks room temperature butter and 3/4 cup sugar for 3-5 minutes.

You want it to be very fluffy and lighter in color. See here? It’s almost white!

Add two eggs, one at a time, and beat until just mixed in.

Meanwhile, sift together 3 cups flour, 1 tablespoon baking powder, and 1 teaspoon salt. You could also just whisk them together until they have that soft sifted texture. I won’t tell anyone.

Now these are muffins, so we’re going to make them via the Muffin Method, like any good little muffin should. :) That means alternating mixing in the wet and dry ingredients. Start by adding a fourth of the flour mixture (a little less than a cup) and stir on low speed until just combined…

Then pour in a third of the milk and stir again. Continue alternating mixing in the dry and wet ingredients, ending with the dry.

Mix until well combined and smooth, like so, but be careful not to overmix your batter or the muffins will be tough.

We’re not using liners for our muffins, so be sure to spray the pan well with cooking spray so they don’t stick. You can even flour it if you’re into that sort of thing. Mine came out okay with just a good coat of cooking spray. Scoop about 1.5 tablespoons of batter into each mini muffin tin. A medium cookie scoop works perfectly for this. Bake at 350 for 14-15 mins, until a toothpick comes out clean.

Now for the fun part!! When these babies come out of the oven, they are dunked in butter and rolled in cinnamon sugar for a delicious sugary crust. It’s pretty much the best thing ever. And since you have to melt the butter anyway, you might as well go ahead and brown it. It’s the right thing to do. If you’ve ever thought to yourself. “Butter is awesome. Butter makes everything taste better. How can I make butter taste even MORE awesome?” Brown butter is the answer. Brown butter has a deliciously rich and even more buttery flavor.It’s a nobrainer. Plus it’s really easy to do. Melt the butter over medium heat, and once it’s melted it will start to bubble. Whisk occasionally.

When the butter starts to foam, like this, start whisking constantly and whisk for 1-2 mins, until it turns brown and you see brown flecks on the bottom of the pan.

Like this. When it looks like this, immediately remove from heat and pour into a bowl for dunking. Beautiful.

Stir together a cup of sugar and a tablespoon of cinnamon for your cinnamon sugar.

Perfect little domes! When the muffins are just cool enough to handle, remove them from the tin…

And dip them in the brown butter. Cover the muffins with the butter on all sides and let the excess drip off. Thank you to Kevin for hand modeling here!

Then roll to coat in cinnamon sugar.

Have mercy.

The sweet, sugary, crunchy crust, paired with the warm, soft muffin is absolute perfection. Now, like any good doughnut, these doughnut muffins are amazing just like this. You could stop here and have a perfectly delicious dessert. That’s one thing I liked about Gourdough’s — they weren’t just about the toppings. The doughnut itself was good too!

But we are going to send these doughnuts completely. over. the. top. by adding a simple vanilla buttercream frosting and fresh summer strawberries.

I found it easier to pipe the frosting onto the muffins. Spreading it tended to scrape off the crust. I had a batch of my favorite vanilla buttercream frosting (recipe below) in the freezer from the last time I made frosting and accidentally made too much. I let it come to room temperature then whipped it up again in my KitchenAid mixer to get the smooth and fluffy consistency, and it tasted just like I’d made it brand new. I will definitely be freezing my leftover frosting from now on! It was such a time saver for these muffins.

Lastly, top with strawberry slices and enjoy!!

These brown buttery, cinnamon sugary, vanilla strawberry doughnut muffins are melt-in-your-mouth crazy delicious.

You could even add blueberries festive these up for the Fourth of July!

These would be perfect to take to a Fourth of July party next week. Only if you want to be the most popular person there, though. ;)

Enjoy, friends!!

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Be sure to check out the all the other fun doughnut recipes posted today inspired by the crazy concoctions of Gourdough’s Gourmet Doughnuts!

1. PB & J by Capturing Joy
2. Granny’s Pie by Crazy for Crust
3. Heavenly Hash by Something Swanky
4. The Carney (Apple Pie Doughnuts) by Shugary Sweets
5. The Flying Pig by The Novice Chef
6. Dirty Berry by Inside BruCrew Life

7. Bring the Heath by Mom on Timeout
8. Son of a Peach by Chef-in-Training
9. Mama’s Cake by The Domestic Rebel
10. The Mother Clucker by Oh Sweet Basil
11. Cherry Bombs by My Life as a Mrs.
12. The Funky Monkey by The Little Kitchen

13. The Baby Rattler by Confessions of a Cookbook Queen
14. Black Out Cupcakes {inspired by Gourdoughs} by Cookies & Cups
15. ODB by Sweet Treats and More
16. The Puddin’ by Lauren’s Latest
17. Naughty & Nice by Life’s Ambrosia
18. Miss Shortcake by Kevin & Amanda