New Round of Mini Doughnuts (Donuts?)

I had to try out a few new flavors/toppings for my latest favorite thing to make for group meeting this week. It was a learning experience that's for sure. I decided to make good old fashioned powdered doughnuts as well as chocolate glazed doughnuts. Why must doughnut be spelled two ways and both ways are right? I always write "donut" but that seems so incorrect when compared to "doughnut". Hmmm. Anyways, the powdered were super easy since all you do after you bake them and let them cool is roll them around until coated in a bowl of powdered sugar. What could be easier? Well when I woke up in the morning nearly all of the powdered sugar had absorbed into the doughnut as if they were feeding off the sugar. A little irritated, I coated them again in the sugar and by the time group meeting rolled around the doughnuts had consumed about half of the sugar again. Despite them not looking totally coated they were really quite delicious, probably because of all the sugar additions and subsequence absorption. I ate way too many of them. Why are powdered doughnuts so addicting?

On to the chocolate doughnuts and the issues that came along with them. Instead of using a recipe I thought I could just whip up a simple ganache and that would glaze them nicely. Why wouldn't it look just like a normal glazed doughnut? Why would I have to use a special recipe? One that will actually harden and not remain sticky and wet forever. No I didn't consider any of this and made a simple ganache by pouring hot whipping cream over dark chocolate chips, letting them melt, stirring it until mixed and shiny and then dipping the cooled doughnuts in the glaze. Well, the ganache was far too thin for this sort of job apparently because it just looked like a brown sheen or lacquer rather than an icing. So I mixed in powdered sugar. And more powdered sugar. And more to stiffen it up a bit and by the time it was relatively thick that frosting was so sweet it was insane. And I have a pretty tolerant sweet tooth. The icing stuck nicely to the cake but the problem was is that it never made a shell like normal doughnut glazes. Still good albeit insanely sweet. Also, really messy.

I need to find an actual recipe for this next time. Also, I wanted to make the actual cake part chocolate too. I'll probably just add in a bit of cocoa powder to the normal recipe. I think that will do the trick.

Here's the doughnut recipe:

1 1/4 C cake flour, sifted
1/2 C granulated sugar
1 1/4 tsp. baking powder
1/8 tsp. nutmeg (I don't add this in--unless you're doing some sort of spice cake I really don't think this is necessary).
3/4 tsp. salt
1/2 buttermilk
1 egg, lightly beaten
1 1/2 Tbs. butter, melted

Preheat oven to 425 degrees F. I use a pastry brush to coat the doughnut tin with melted butter. Works so much better than your fingers (I did this the fist time). Or you could use spray but you wants all those chemicals??

In a large mixing bowl, sift together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add buttermilk, egg, and butter and stir until just combined. Fill each doughnut cup approximately 1/2 full. I pipe it in using a large tip. Makes for even sizing and is far less messy. Bake 4-6 minutes (for my oven, 5 min is perfect) or until the top of the doughnuts spring back when touched. 5 minutes doesn't allow for a browning of the doughnuts, instead it makes them soft and pillowy and since your coating them in a glaze etc. who needs them to be golden brown? Let cool in a pan for 4-5 minutes (again, 5 minutes is perfect) before removing. Finish doughnuts with glaze or sprinkles (mmm sprinkles, why had I never thought of you?! Next time. Next time). Makes 24 doughnuts.

Photos by Collin Monda.