I was discovering blogs yesterday on John’s new americanfoodbloggers.com and used the “most recent posts” where every new post from America’s best food bloggers is listed as it’s published. What I like about it is the opportunity to discover blogs that have never been on my radar either because I haven’t seen them on social media nor seen a comment they’d posted. The same thing works for aussiefoodbloggers.com too but that’s been working a bit longer. I’ve been spending far too long visiting blogs since this feature arrived.
I came across a new post by Chineka over at Savor the Baking and she’d made these cinnamon donuts. I’d been shopping at the local mall the day before and I bought a donut pan on sale for half price. It needed to be used.
I’ll be honest here, these donuts aren’t perfect. I made a few teensy mistakes but hey, they tasted great and it just goes to show you can make a goof or two and still get good results. So we’ll call these our practice donuts. Next time I’ll make donuts I really like. Chocolate coated in sugar. Maybe vanilla coated in icing sugar. You know the kind where the sugar goes everywhere when you eat them.
What did I do wrong? My donut pan, as it turned out, makes mini donuts and I filled it like it made big ones. So they’re a bit deformed. I didn’t have buttermilk so I added some vinegar but maybe too much and I got holes in my donuts. More room to hide butter and sugar, I say. I realize that I probably should have re-made these but when I thought about it I decided that it was a good idea to show that it’s easy to make a goof when you muck around with someone else’s recipe.
Fried or baked, Cinnamon sugar donuts are not my all-time favorite but they are John’s. He ate one after breakfast with a second cup of coffee and determined that they were definitely blogworthy.
We were planning to see the olds at the nursing home in the afternoon to put up a Christmas tree for Joan and I thought I could make these little donuts and bring them over for coffee time. They came together really easily. I didn’t follow her recipe exactly because, well, I never follow anything exactly. I’m not a follow the rules sort of person. I wanted more cinnamon and I didn’t have any buttermilk so I made do.
Joan was thrilled with her new Christmas tree in the same way an eight year old would be. She’s usually angry and rarely pleasant but she was today and kept saying thank you. She loved the donuts and so did Rob. It was so nice to be with her and not have her trying to complain but not finding the words. Dementia is awful.
These donuts came together really easily. I put all the ingredients out and whisked the dry ingredients, added the wet and I was ready to stuff the pan. Now I didn’t think about it but I should have piped the batter into the pan. I didn’t. I plopped the batter in and cleared off the center thingy. It wasn’t 5-star donuting and you have my apologies. It did, however, only take 30 minutes from beginning to end. Whether you’re making donuts or doughnuts, these taste great.
- Baking spray with flour, such as Baker’s Joy
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1½ cups sugar
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- ½ teaspoon ground nutmeg
- ½ teaspoon kosher salt
- 1 egg - I used extra-large (lightly beaten)
- 1¼ cups whole milk
- 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
- 2 teaspoons vanilla extract (use the good stuff)
- 113 grams (1 stick) unsalted butter
- ½ cup sugar
- ½ teaspoon ground cinnamon
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Spray 2 doughnut pans with oil.
- Whisk (or sift) the flour, sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, baking powder and salt.
- In another bowl, whisk together the egg, milk, melted butter, and vanilla.
- Stir the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until just combined.
- Spoon the batter into the baking pans, filling each one a little more than ¾ full.
- Bake for 17 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean.
- Cool on a rack for 5 minutes, then remove the doughnuts.
- Melt the butter either on the stovetop or microwave.
- In a small bowl, combine the sugar and cinnamon.
- Dip each doughnut in the butter and sit on a rack over a sheet pan. When the donuts are all buttered, roll in the cinnamon sugar so they're coated all over. I found that dipping in butter and immediately in sugar left globs of cinnamon sugar. when I let the butter soak in for a few minutes they sugared much better.