These sweet and light vanilla cinnamon apple puffs will make you think you’re eating fresh doughnut holes from the comfort of your own kitchen. Simple to make and delightful to eat, they’d be a great weekend morning surprise for your family!
This post is brought to you by A Healthy Slice of Life sponsor.
I have a confession. Lately my use of whole wheat flour has been scarce at best.
See, there was a time when I put black beans in brownies and made cookies from flax eggs and applesauce and wouldn’t consider eating anything besides 100% whole wheat bread. There is nothing wrong with that, really, but my personal outlook on health has morphed a bit since then. I’ve realized that I eat those things so rarely that when I want a brownie, I want a chocolately, fudgey one. And since I’ve been making my own bread, I’m more comfortable using bread flour to make it light, fluffy and delicious. Moderation baby.
Long intro short, I’ve gotten more comfortable with the idea of treat yo’ self.
Especially when you can treat yourself with real ingredients in the comfort of your own kitchen.
I had that mantra in mind when I created these little gems. Our breakfasts are pretty typical around here and I was trying to dream up a breakfast treat, reminiscent of Dunkin’ Donuts’ Munchkins to surprise Hailey with on a Saturday morning.
After three tries, and plenty of tasting, I got it just right.
These Cinnamon Vanilla Apple Puffs are bite-sized breakfast treats will definitely make your family or friends smile. You will need a good, nonstick mini-muffin pan. I like this one.
By using unsweetened ingredients for the puffs themselves, it keeps them from being too sweet. This way the puff stays cakey and delicious…
while allowing the cinnamon sugar coating to really bring it home.
Mmm…
puuuuuuffffsssss…
These would be great to make for brunch, for a sleepover or just anytime you’re craving a little something special at breakfast.
Cinnamon Vanilla Apple Puffs
- Prep Time: 10 mins
- Cook Time: 12 mins
- Total Time: 22 mins
- Yield: 24 mini puffs 1x
- Category: dessert, recipes
- Cuisine: dessert
Description
These sweet and light vanilla cinnamon apple puffs will make you think you’re eating fresh doughnut holes from the comfort of your own kitchen. Simple to make and delightful to eat, they’d be a great weekend morning surprise for your family!
Ingredients
- 2 cups all purpose flour
- 1 Tbsp baking powder
- 1 tsp salt
- 1 tsp cinnamon
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
- 1/2 cup organic canola oil
- 1 egg
- 1/4 cup Blue Diamond Unsweetened Vanilla Almond Breeze
- For the coating
- 3 Tbsp butter
- 1/4 cup sugar
- 2 tsp cinnamon
Instructions
- Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
- In a large mixing bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and sugar. Whisk to combine.
- In a separate mixing bowl, whisk together applesauce, oil, egg and Blue Diamond unsweetened vanilla almond milk.
- Pour the dry ingredients into the wet, stirring as you go until a thick batter forms.
- Spoon about 1 Tbsp of batter into each cup in a greased mini muffin pan.
- Bake for 12-14 minutes until cooked through.
- While baking, combine cinnamon and sugar in one small bowl and melt butter in another.
- Allow puffs to cool for 5 minutes, them dip the top of each one, first in butter, then into the cinnamon sugar topping.
- Serve immediately.
Keywords: desserts, recipes
This post is sponsored by Almond Breeze Almond Milk.
When you bake at home, do you try to make recipes healthier or just go all out?
Liz @ I Heart Vegetables says
These look delicious! I love little mini treats like this. The perfect on the go snack! (And almond breeze is our go-to almond milk, too!)
Brynn says
moderation is the name of the game and these babies are making an appearance in my kitchen today! I wanted to bake something for my husband who is a huge lover or breakfast pastries. These are perfect!
Jen says
Wow, those really are tempting!
I would say I’m in the same place as you–I used to “healthify” treats to the point where they were barely a treat anymore, to the point where my husband now eyes every baked good on the counter with suspicion and asks, “are these healthy, or are they real?” These days, though, I usually just make the real deal if I’m going to make something. I do usually have only white whole wheat flour in the house, but I’m not afraid of white flour anymore 🙂
Brittany Dixon says
David would do the same thing- ask what is in this? before taking a bite of anything! He’s been pleasantly surprised lately 😉
Heather says
These look/sound so yummy!!
I try to do a combination of healthy and going all out. The kiddos really don’t eat cookies and things like that all that often, so when we make chocolate chip cookies, we make chocolate chip cookies. 😉 I do try and keep a balance with everything, but I’ve definitely become less picky with time. With my son I was a stickler and found healthy versions of every sweet treat, but now I let it slide more… maybe too much sometimes. Ha ha.
Rachel says
Yum! My kids would love these! Question though: do you think I could sub in regular milk instead of using almond milk? We don’t drink almond milk and I’m not going to buy a whole container of it for just 1/4 cup.
Brittany Dixon says
I’m sure they’d do just fine with regular milk! You could always add a 1/2 tsp of vanilla extract too if you wanted to get the vanilla flavor.
Kathy says
Beautiful! I doubt I could stop at one! 🙂
Katy Mc says
I am going to make these today!!! We’ve got a house guest this weekend and these will be perfect!
Brittany Dixon says
They are best served the day they are made! I froze some though and that worked pretty well, but the topping was a little stickier and not quite as pretty 🙂 Let me know what you think 🙂
Katy Mc says
They were so easy to make….and so tasty that I made a second batch for the girls school!!! I will definitely keep this recipe in my back pocket!!! Keep the recipes coming 😉
Lauren Brennan says
They look scrumptious!
It depends….I usually try to make some healthier substitutions as long as they don’t change the flavor or texture. For example, using half whole wheat or cutting half the butter with applesauce. But if it’s for a party or something, I will go all out.
Joanna @Makingmine says
These look heavenly! Food tastes even better when it’s cute, right?! 🙂
Brittany Dixon says
Totally agree- everything tastes better in a mini version 😉
Alyssa @ Life of bLyss says
Okay, these look amazing, and they are making me crave some sort of mini muffin really, really bad.
Thanks a lot, Britt. 😉
LaToya says
They look so good. I am adding this to my recipe list!
Allison @ plaidpdxmama says
I can’t wait to try this out!! Have you ever tried with a larger muffin pan?
Brittany Dixon says
I haven’t tried them larger, but if you do please let me know how they turn out!
Josephine says
I’ve got to say at the moment I tend to health-ify all my baking. But I have been thinking recently is it worth the bother? There is so much conflicting information on what is healthy that I find it confusing. Butter is high in Saturated fat so I swap to canola oil. Then I find out canola oil is a GMO crop, swap to rapeseed oil find out rapeseed oil is toxic, then blogs everywhere are saying butter is good for you and has important nutrients. Agave is good because it is low gI, then it’s bad because it’s processed, brown rice syrup arsenic concerns, honey and maple syrup high GI, white sugar processed and feeds cancer cells. Wheat flour is bad and we are all getting wheat belly, I buy spelt flour. Nope not good enough now we have to be paleo no grains at all, buy me some coconut flour and oil. Now I’m sick of Everything tasting like coconut! Ummm my head hurts. Then ofcourse every time I sub white flour for spelt flour or wholemeal my muffins are heavy, don’t rise much and gummy. Then I start thinking about digging out my Magnolia bakery cookbook and making real delicious blueberry muffins with white flour and butter.
The real kicker in this is that growing up my mum always made cake. We had Cake made with butter and sugar and white flour in the house all the time for afternoon tea after school. I wasn’t fat or unhealthy growing up. When my mum came to stay with me she looked at my recipe books wanting to make a cake and said “I can’t find any normal baking books to make a normal cake”!
emma @ be mom strong says
AMEN!!! I am diving full force into this nutrition thing and beginning to think it’s a waste of time! I have started reading Authority Nutrition and like his approach.
BUT I love love love making muffins!
Brittany Dixon says
Hi Josephine! I want to just hug you because I feel for what you are going through. I was the same way at one time, but I’ve really found a way that works for me now without driving me crazy. Have you read ‘In Defense of Food’ by Michael Pollan? I highly recommend it. His simple rules of eat food, not too much, mostly plants, really opened my eyes and helped me relax. I stopped trying to be perfect, which made all the difference in the world! Now I try and do the best I can (I’ll buy organic canola oil since 90% of canola is GMO), but I won’t fret is I’m eating a non-organic blueberry either. I know people that LOVE being healthy but down an occasional diet coke. Part of being healthy to me includes being healthy mentally, so I do the best I can to buy the best foods I can, then relax about the rest. Wow, this got longer than I intended, but I just wanted to say I know how you feel <3
Josephine says
Thanks Brittany, you are so great at responding to your readers and I really look forward to your posts. I haven’t read “in defence of food” but have been meaning to except I don’t seem to get around to reading actual books these days! But somehow spend lots of time on Pinterest and blogs over my morning coffee. I am definitely aware of choosing mostly plants, however it’s not what I do. My healthily baking obsession is because I don’t want to give up my cake and tea in the afternoon! But at the end of the day baking either way is still calories. It’s my version of a daily glass of wine, my chill time. My diet definitely is carb heavy and even though my weight is two stone above where I would like it to be I can’t quite find the motivation to change. I indulge in lunchtime pasta with my toddler not salad! I even had a personal trainer twice a week last year. I gave up this year because you can’t out train a bad diet and I decided it was a waste of money . Since stopping exercising I gained another stone though. I am the classic yo yo dieter and portion distortion eater who dislikes exercise. I loose weight before every summer holiday and spend the rest of the year putting it back on. Too easy to eat whatever you like when you are a SAHM and no one is there to see you! My desire for food always outstrips my desire to look nice or to be in good health. When I was younger my motivation was dressing well and looking good but that just isn’t working for me now.
Katya says
so I just made these this morning…..soooooo good!!!!! I didn’t have almond milk so used regular milk and added a dash of vanilla essence.
Will definitely make again, just like little pockets of donut deliciousness!
Kim says
These look really similar to Smitten Kitchen’s but much healthier 🙂
http://smittenkitchen.com/blog/2011/12/cinnamon-brown-butter-breakfast-puffs/