I am a pastry chef with a small bakery/cafe. I use this recipe** everyday to make these donuts. **I like to add 2T. melted butter instead of shortening, omit the cinnamon in the batter, use buttermilk instead of milk and bake them at 400' for 8 to 9 minutes. Once finished, a quick dunk in melted butter and a roll in white sugar, granulated brown sugar and cinnamon (combined of course) makes a donut my customers crave. I also bake them in mini muffin pans (same time as donuts) and they are "poppers". Try these revisions and you will never go to the chains again for donuts. YUM.
I bought an electric doughnut maker expecting it to come with a simple recipe but it didn't. After searching on here for the tastiest sounding recipe but also the least complicated i found this delicious mix which is absolutely fabulous with a chocolate topping.
I honestly don't understand why this recipe has gotten so many one-star reviews. I have made them twice now, and they barely lasted a day both times - my family just loves them! They are not Tim Hortons/Krispy Kreme donuts, but I wasn't expecting them to be either. I wanted something much lighter that I could use my donut pans for, and I think this recipe is perfect for what I was looking for.
If you are expecting these to taste like a fried donut you will be disappointed. For a baked donut, though, they are *very* good. And do not expect them to brown--they will be pale. They are done when they spring back to a light touch. If you bake them till they brown they are dry. I make them with only 1T of melted butter (to save on calories--it doesn't affect the donuts), then spray them on both sides with butter-flavored cooking spray after they come out of the oven. I also add plenty of cinnamon to the glaze (we like cinnamon a lot) and it makes them taste like the powdered sugar/cinnamon donuts only they do not shed. The texture is a little different than a fried cake donut--lots lighter (not sure where others are getting denser). The hardest part is getting the right amount of batter into the donut pan =D. The batter is extremely stiff, and does take some getting used to as far as transferring it into the donut pan. It helps to take a toothpick and run it through the batter--it seals up the edges of the batter so they come out circular instead of like a sealed "c." It also takes some of the air bubbles out of the batter, so the bottoms are prettier and not all cratered. From the above recipe you will get ~48 mini donuts. We love them! Next time I will try the chocolate. Or maybe half chocolate and half cinnamon glazed.
To make these Cake Doughnuts fluffy, mix just until moistened and use buttermilk (3/4 cup of milk w/ scant 1 T vinegar; let sit 5-10 mins). Otherwise, you will get a tough doughnut from over-mixing. Gotta find a different frosting.
This recipe even worked well with my mini-doughnut pan, which a lot of other batters don't do well. My husband loves these if I add some cocoa into the mix too, they're wonderful!
I took the top reviewer's suggestions and omitted the nutmeg and cinnamon, I used buttermilk ("soured" lactose-free milk, really) and I used two tablespoons melted butter in place of the shortening. Honestly, I made this recipe twice this morning. The first time was unsuccessful because I overfilled the doughnut pans (and honestly, I think that the baking time was too low) and the doughnuts were underdone and kind of gross. The second time, I slowed my roll. I used a tablespoon of batter on each side of the doughnut pan, banged the pan down on the counter a few times (which my mother always taught me to do with cakes, not only to even the batter but to also try to eliminate some of the air bubbles), then I baked them for eight minutes at 425*. The second time they turned out perfect. They're exactly as the title states--fluffy and cake-y. I got 18 muffins out of one recipe. I used my Grandma's Vanilla Glaze for these doughnuts instead of the one called for in this recipe. My husband and kids ate 12 doughnuts all on their own, I sent the other 6 to my aunt's house for her family. This was a good learning experiance for the first time I've ever used a doughnut pan. I'll use this recipe again.
Great recipe with just a few tweaks. I followed others' advice and omitted the cinnamon used "sour" milk added an extra 1 T shortening (I melted the shortening to incorporate it better) and topped them by dunking in butter and rolling in cinnamon/sugar mixture. Outstanding!
Didn't taste like either a donut or cake. Very disappointing when so many of the reviews seemed positive. If you don't have one of the donut pans, be aware that the dough is more like the consistency of pancake batter so without that special type of pan you won't be able to make these.
