Donut Mess With My Clique

Friday morning, after a brief discussion about how old is too old for a sleepover, my friend Kim and I decided to make donuts. Well, that's not quite the whole story. We decided to make donuts LAST week, but after spending an hour hunting and foraging through our local Jewel, Target, Walmart, and TJ Maxx, we returned home defeated, resigning ourselves to watching a The Other Woman and indulging in root beer floats. Forced to put off our donut-baking extravaganza, I ended up ordering two pans off Amazon. Having them at hand this weekend, we were able to actually bake 18 delicious donuts.

Pepper investigates the donut-decorating process.

 Now, there are several reasons one should consider baking donuts. 1) They are delicious. 2) They are cute. Seriously. Even the pans look cute and donuts are just cute. 3) Baking donuts is actually somewhat healthier than buying the deep-fried ones from the grocery store or Dunkin's. (Not that this has stopped me from eating donuts before. They're a good treat.) 4) Everyone just likes donuts, okay? If they say they don't, they're probably a liar and you should cut their toxic presence out of your life.

Because I'm a sucker for sprinkles, those were the first kind we made. Sprinkled donuts. Ever since I was a kid, they were the only kind of donut I would eat. Dad would head to our local Spunky Dunkers (which has the best donuts. You can't argue with me on this until you come here and try them) on those rare Sunday mornings and bring in a haul of fatty, sugary rings of dough. A double chocolate for one sister, a sugar raised for the other, a boston creme for my brother, an assortment of others for my parents, and always a sprinkled one for me. I could never resist the white icing speckled with pastel colors. And they always changed the these of the sprinkles depending on the time or year, which was in all honesty the neatest thing. Red and green for Christmas, pink and red hearts for Valentine's, bunnies and egg shapes for Easter, patriotic colors for the fourth, and of course, my favorite, Ghosts and pumpkins and even black cats for Halloween. (I had a serious thing for cats. As obsessions go, it was pretty bad.)

So, here's the recipe we used for the donuts: from Joy the Baker

(We doubled it and ended up being able to make a total of 18 donuts, but here's the basic recipe! We also made white vanilla icing and cinnamon-sugar coating instead of the chocolate icing Joy the Baker uses.)

Brown Butter Baked Doughnuts with Chocolate Glaze

Yield: 6 Doughnuts

For the Doughnuts:

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
• 1/3 cup granulated sugar
• 3 tablespoons unsalted butter (but we’ll only use 2 tablespoons of browned butter for the recipe)
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
• For the Chocolate Glaze:
• 1 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder
• pinch of salt
• 3 to 4 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Place a rack in the upper third of the oven and preheat oven to 350 degrees F.  Lightly grease a doughnut pan and set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and sugar.  Set aside.

In a small saucepan over medium-low heat, melt butter.  Butter will begin to crackle and pop as it melts.  That’s the water melting out of the butter.  Once the water has evaporated the butter will quiet down and begin to brown.  Keep an eye on it, it browns quickly.  The butter will begin to smell nutty.  Remove from heat and immediately transfer browned butter (brown bits and all) to a small bowl.

In a small bowl whisk together egg, buttermilk, and vanilla extract.  Measure out 2 tablespoons of browned butter and whisk into the wet ingredients.

Add the wet ingredients all at once to the dry ingredients.  Stir together until no flour bits remain and all of the ingredients are well combined.  Try not to overmix the batter.  That might create rubbery doughnuts.

Use a small spoon to dollop batter into the prepared pan.  Smooth out and fill each doughnut in the pan three-quarters full with batter.

Place in the oven and bake for 8 to 10 minutes.  Keep an eye on them and try not to over-bake them.  Remove from the oven and allow to cool in the pan before inverting onto a wire rack to cool completely.

While the doughnuts cool, make the glaze.

Once the doughnuts are completely cool, dip top-side-down into the chocolate glaze.  Return to the wire rack and sprinkle with toppings.  Allow to set for about 30 minutes before stacking or serving. Doughnuts are best within 2 days.  

Kim devouring the first donut.

White Vanilla Icing:

• 1 cup of powdered sugar
• 4 tablespoons of milk
• 1/2 teaspoon of vanilla extract

Mix the ingredients together to a thick glaze. Dip cooled donuts top-down in glaze, then immediately dip glazed portion of donuts into a bowl of sprinkles.

Cinnamon-Sugar Topping:

Mix granulated sugar and cinnamon in a bowl until a warm brown/sandy color is achieved.

Dip the donut in melted butter, then roll in cinnamon-sugar mixture until the donut is completely coated.

The donuts ended up turning out absolutely soft and delicious! They weren't heavy at all like I expected them to be. This assuredly won't be the last time I make donuts. And probably not the last time Kim and I have a sleepover. We've been having them for about 14 years, only now we're going to start calling them "organized crashing-at-my-place" so we seem more /adult/. 

Have you experimented with Baking donuts before? Have any thoughts or tips? Comment below!

Finished product. Try to tell me sprinkled donuts aren't the most adorable thing you've ever seen. It makes them all the more fun to eat!