Cake Doughnuts... Baked, Not Fried!

I've been in a doughnut mood lately! I haven't made any, and the only ones I've eaten were from Dunkin Deathnuts, yuck! Yesterday I came across these mini fluted tube pans at Wal-Mart, and I had to have them. Since they could produce a baked good with a hole in the middle, I figured DOUGHNUTS! Why not? After a quick google search for baked doughnuts, I ended up at the King Arthur Flour website. The recipe had good reviews, and I had all of the ingredients on hand.

Commence my first baked doughnut experience...

The whole process took under 30 minutes. I mean literally from start to finish, from batter to photograph, was under half an hour. That's gotta be some kind of kitchen miracle. During their brief stint in the oven, the house smelled sooo delightful. You could practically see the cartoon scents swirling through the air. As soon as they came out of the oven, I shook them around in a bag full of cinnamon sugar. It was hard to resist not grabbing one of these warm little guys before getting pictures. But I kept it together until I was ready for a shot of the innards.

My evaluation is that these are yummy, considering the fact that they're baked and that they're cake doughnuts (which don't even place in my "top 5 doughnuts" list). The surface that browned in the pans is crunchy and spectacular. The flavor is nice, but I think next time I'd leave the cinnamon out of the batter and just have it in the cinnamon sugar. Overall, I'd make these again, but they're still not in my top 5! Also, next time I'm going to make them chocolate and dip them in a chocolate glaze. :D

Baked Doughnuts
Makes 6 regular sized or 12 mini doughnuts

1 cup (4 ounces) Round Table Unbleached Pastry Flour or 7/8 cup (4 ounces) King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
3 tablespoons dried buttermilk powder (or use 2 tablespoons buttermilk or yogurt in place of the 2 tablespoons water)
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
2 tablespoons water

Whisk together all of the dry ingredients in a medium-sized mixing bowl.

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, oil and water (or buttermilk or yogurt) until foamy.

Pour the liquid ingredients all at once into the dry ingredients and stir just until combined.

Butter or grease the doughnut pan; non-stick pan spray works well here. Note: even though the pan is non-stick, since the doughnuts are low-fat they may stick unless you grease the pan first. Fill each doughnut form half full. (I used a pastry bag and piped one circle of batter into each cup.)

Bake the doughnuts in a preheated 375°F oven for 10 to 12 minutes. (My mini doughnuts baked for about 7 minutes.) When done, they'll spring back when touched lightly, and will be quite brown on the top. (Mine were barely browned on top.)

Remove the doughnuts from the oven, remove them from the pan, and allow them to cool on rack. Glaze with icing, or coat with cinnamon-sugar (1/2 cup sugar + 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon) or any non-melting sugar.

Printable recipe can be found on this page: Baked Doughnuts: King Arthur Flour