On our road trip from Seattle to California we made a lot of detours to local bakeries and donut shops. One bakery we made a point to visit was the Downtown Bakery and Creamery in Healdsburg, California. Healdsberg is a quaint little town 70 miles north of San Francisco filled with little shops and restaurants, I highly recommend a visit if your ever in the area. We heard about Downtown Bakery's donut muffin from Food Networks "The Best Thing I Ever Ate - Snack Attack" show. Candace Nelson the founder of Sprinkles Cupcakes loved their donut muffin so much, she created a cupcake in tribute to the donut muffin. The Sprinkles version is basically a cupcake with cinnamon sugar, not exactly the same thing. Personally, I would like to eat the donut muffin whenever I want without having to drive over 400 miles to Healdsberg and Sprinkles isn't going to cut it, especially at $3.25 a cupcake. Luckily my wife found a recipe in The Pioneer Woman Cookbook for a French Breakfast Puff, which is exactly the same thing as the donut muffin. The only change I made to the recipe was to add a little bit more cinnamon.

Lately, I have been jonesing to make some donuts and putting my new fryer to good use. The extended fourth of July weekend gave me the opportunity to spend some time in the kitchen working with hot oil. Being a little too impatient to make traditional donuts that require yeast to rise, I opted for these quick and easy donut holes. No yeast required and no standby time. Just mix and fry to enjoy some cinnamon sugar donut holes. But mark my words, this isn't going to be the last of the donut recipes on MvsK. I am still looking forward to making the traditional donut. Until that day comes, enjoy these bite size cinnamon sugar donut holes.

The history of the Croissant is as flakey as its delicious crust. Stories of its origin date back to the 8th century. One story states that the Croissant was invented in Vienna, Austria in 1683 to celebrate the defeat of the Turks, in reference to the crescent on the Turkish flag. Until today, I never thought war had an influence on culinary creations. Join us in adding chocolate to history and enjoying the taste of victory, so to speak.