One Hour “Pastries”–Mini Doughnuts

For those that want to know, doughnuts are not pastries.  Technically, given the way they are made, they would be closer to cakes.  That being said, doughnuts are often sold in bakeries that specialize in pastries, because they are crowd pleasers.  And America is well known for taking liberties with food categories.  The truth is, I recently purchased a new baking pan from Bed Bath & Beyond and I wanted to play with it.  It was very quick, so I thought I would share my results with you.
First off, I will show you a picture of my helper chef, D’argo, who was a little too eager to be a part of the baking process that he was banned from the kitchen while I worked.  He almost tripped me twice, with his frenetic running around.  But he was hopeful through the end of the process that he would be allowed back in.


I promise to only trip you when you are carrying bacon...

 As always, I gathered my ingredients together, to make sure I had everything.  Success!  I had enough for a double batch, assuming everything turned out right.


If you have ingredients in jars your Grandma would love, it will taste even better!

 Here is the pan that started it all.  Isn’t it cute?  On the back of the packaging is a simple recipe for cake doughnuts, made with buttermilk and a touch of sugar.  Wait… there is also a tiny recipe for a vanilla glaze for the doughnuts…


These make mini-doughnuts... or large Cheerios.



If you can't read this, I give all the amounts below.

               















Let’s make that too.  I have the ingredients.  There’s not much to a glaze other than water, a touch of flavor, and a load of sugar.  I even have food coloring.  Ooh!  And sprinkles.  Great donuts have sprinkles! <drool>


Powdered sugar... the most dangerous powder I ever deal with.

 Anyway, back to the doughnuts.  First step, preheat oven to 425.  Second step, spray the doughnut trenches with vegetable oil spray.  Then, judging by the recipe – which you should always read through before making for the first time – my third step was to melt the butter.  As it wasn’t but 1 1/2 tablespoons of butter, it took about 25 seconds in the microwave.


Delicious delicious sunshine!

 Dry ingredients first.  In a big bowl, mix 1 1/4 cup flour, 1/2 cup sugar, 1 1/4 teaspoon baking powder, 1/8 teaspoon ground nutmeg, and 1 1/2 teaspoon salt.  Mix it all up.  I just stir with whatever mixing spoon I used last.  But, I'm not that picky.


Avoid the temptation to throw this at someone.

 Add the liquid ingredients: 1/2 cup buttermilk, the melted butter, and 1 egg, lightly beaten.  Stir until moistened.  Do not over stir, because you don’t want to de-fluff the dough.  The key to a great cake donut is fluffiness.  Just ask anyone who has ever eaten a squished doughnut.  They suck.


Don't' fling this at anyone either.



Okay.  You can fling this.  Just a little though.

              










If you have a pastry bag, this dough is just thick enough to load into it, which really helps in loading the tiny doughnut trenches in the pan.  I didn’t have a clean one at hand, so I did what anyone in a hurry would do.  I loaded it into a quart-sized Ziploc bag, sealed it really good, and cut a tiny piece of one corner off.  Quick-time pastry bag.  Fill the doughnut trenches half full says the recipe.  That is easy to do with a pastry bag.  Not so easy to do with a spoon.  You can trust me on this.


They kind of look like tortellini right now.



It looks gross, but trust me, this works.
















                             
Pop the pan in the oven and bake 4-5 minutes.  The doughnuts will be done when you touch one and it springs back.  For anyone who tries this and doesn’t know what this means, if you put your finger on a doughnut and it doesn’t leave an indention… they are ready.  They will still be pale, but don’t let that bother you.  Let it cool for 5 minutes before flopping out of the pan.  Mine pretty much fell right out.  Let them cool on a wire rack.  Respray the pan and load up another dozen.




If you eat one now, you will lose a few tastebuds.  Totally worth it.

     
The recipe says it makes 2 dozen of these bad boys.  But I made a little over three dozen.  As you can tell by the picture below, they overfilled a trench every so often.

This is how Spaghettios make each individual noodle

Now, on to the glaze!  Actually, as the recipe says, it is more of an icing than a glaze.  I added just a touch of yellow liquid coloring.  As you can tell by the photo, I over did it a little.  Well, I like it anyway.  If you want to make a donut glaze to make it look more like your traditional donut... heat the glaze just a little.  This will require you to dip the donut into the glaze, turn it back over, and let it drip over something as it dries (and it will, never fear).  That sounded like a little too much work for me, so I didn't do that.


That looks almost like liquid uranium.

 I decorated the doughnuts three different ways.  First, I used another Ziploc pastry bag (snack size this time) to put a circle of glaze on each doughnut, followed by sprinkles.  Second, I used the pastry bag and swiped stripes across several doughnuts, again followed by sprinkles.  Third, I left some without icing.  My husband, Brant, doesn’t really like icing, so I knew he would eat those.  Melted chocolate would also go over great with these.  But when hasn't chocolate and doughnuts gone together?


Just like the Simpson's doughnuts.... only yellow.



Plain.. for people who can't stand the happiness of sugar.



Tiger striping... you can pretend you are fierce when you eat these!

       
Now that they were done, I needed a taste-monkey to see if they were really good or just so-so.  Brant was the victim – er, taste-monkey – last time, so I decided to try someone new.  The dogs volunteered, but since they can’t talk and will eat anything I thought to find someone else.  So I took the doughnuts to work, and asked a friend from our neighbor lab, Stephanie Brosius, to try.  I captured her immediate reaction.


Taste-monkey Stephanie approves!



We want to eat doughnuts!  (and bacon!)