Mini Baked Donuts

Happy Valentine’s Day! (Tim, I like you!! xoxo!!)

Time to talk about donuts. What would a month of breakfast be without donuts?

These are mini and baked so no guilt, right? I got this pan on sale a few weeks ago and have been anxious to try it.

Tim has a theory that mini food or jumbo food are the most fun and delicious. Regular sized food is fine but boring. I think on most levels he is right. Giant cupcake? Yup. Mini bundt cake? Yup, adorable. However, these mini donuts were a pain in my rump!

The pan is so teeny tiny that it’s impossible to fill and the recipe makes 4 dozen+ so unless you have a ton of pans it means it takes forever to bake them all.

I had to put the batter in a ziptop bag and snip a corner off in order to fill these pans with limited mess.

And you REALLY can not fill them more than half way or they lose the donutty shape.

And you MUST grease the pan (for every batch) or they are impossible to pry loose even if the pan is non-stick.

Adorable but a big pain!

I coated some with cinnamon sugar. In a large ziptop bag I mixed sugar and cinnamon and then threw the donuts in while still hot and shook them around to coat before cooling on a baking rack.

I tried to do the same thing with powdered sugar but it just didn’t stick very well. So the rest of them I dipped in some melted white chocolate that I had colored pink and then dipped them in assorted toppings.

I used shredded coconut, mini chocolate chips and mini marshmallows as topping on the chocolate dip. They were good.

But not great. Not donutty. It made me sad.

Baked donuts and donut baking pans in assorted sizes are all the rage right now. They are all over the internet and kitchen stores and they seem like a good idea in theory. BUT. . .I gotta tell ya, they just don’t taste like a donut.  The frying really makes a donut apparently. Who knew?

They are still good and cake like. And cute, no question. I particularily liked the ones with the mini chocolate chips on them. A pan that makes bigger, regular size donuts is probably the way to go,though. That mini pan may never again get used in my kitchen. Although, Tim wants to try tiny brownies in it. We’ll see.

Mini Baked Donuts

1 cup all purpose flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

1/2 cup white sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp ground nutmeg

1/2 tsp salt

3/4 cups buttermilk

2 eggs

3 Tbsp applesauce

1Tbsp vanilla extract

In a mixing bowl combine all the dry ingredients. In a small bowl whisk together the wet ingredients. Pour the wet into the dry and mix well.

Make it easier on yourself by spooning the mixture into a plastic bag and snipping off one corner to pipe the filling into the greased donut pan. (I used non stick spray)

It’s very important to only fill each cup halfway.

Bake at 325 degrees for 8-10 minutes. Makes 4-5 dozen mini donuts.

Ice, glaze or top however you wish.