Baked, Not Fried | Double Chocolate Baked Doughnuts

Double Chocolate Baked Doughnuts | Once Upon a Recipe

Hi friends, happy Friday!

My brain is full of pressing questions. First of all, is it doughnut or donut? Is it simply a matter of preference or is there one correct answer? These are the questions that keep me awake at night. Just kidding…sort of. #firstworldproblems

Secondly, why the blazes has it taken me so long to make baked doughnuts? I mean, I realize that I’m a little late to the party. In my defense, I bought my doughnut pan approximately 11 months ago, when baked doughnuts were gaining popularity. Prior to the creation of the lovely specimen you see above, I used my doughnut pan approximately once. It was a massive fail of a recipe, so perhaps I began to equate my doughnut pan with failure and consequently shoved it to the very back of my cupboard to suffer with the mice poop and other dusty dishes. Just kidding, I don’t have mice poop in my cupboards. At least, not to my knowledge. What you don’t know can’t hurt you!

Double Chocolate Baked Doughnuts | Once Upon a Recipe

In any case, earlier this week I decided to give my doughnut pan another shot. And proceeded to become extremely frustrated when my doughnuts came out of the oven with muffin tops, making them resemble anything but a doughnut. Argh. The doughnuts tasted good, but they didn’t look like doughnuts, and I kind of thought that defeated the purpose. I mean, I may as well make muffins if my baked doughnuts aren’t going to resemble actual doughnuts.

Fortunately, instead of giving up, I pressed on. And I figured out the problem. The key to pretty little baked doughnuts is to refrain from overfilling the pan. Those bad boys rise up in the oven, and you’ve got to give ’em some room! It really helps to put the batter into a piping bag and pipe it into the pan. Spooning it into the pan just might cause you to have a frustration/impatience-induced stroke. Words of wisdom friends.

Double Chocolate Baked Doughnuts | Once Upon a Recipe

If you don’t already own a doughnut pan, I highly recommend the $10 investment. (I have this pan). Baked doughnuts look freaking boss! I mean, they look like a doughnut, which is inherently impressive given the amount of time and energy that goes into making real doughnuts (the amazingly delicious fried kind). But the kicker is, they’re baked, not fried, meaning they take way less effort and they’re way less bad for you to consume. Winning!

They’re cute too, no? Cute food. It’s the little things that make life worth living.

Double Chocolate Baked Doughnuts | Once Upon a Recipe

Don’t even try to tell me that you don’t want to stick your face right into that up there. I’ll totally call your bluff.

Double Chocolate Baked Doughnuts | Once Upon a Recipe

Bonus: These baked doughnuts aren’t all that bad for you. I’m not calling them health food, but they’ll provide you with the satisfaction of enjoying a delicious treat (a doughnut!) without the kind of abuse to your waistline caused by their fried cousins. And the recipe makes six doughnuts. Even if you completely lack any self control, you’ll only have consumed six doughnuts. There are worse things you could do. Just sayin’…

Double Chocolate Baked Doughnuts | Once Upon a Recipe

Double Chocolate Baked Doughnuts

Makes six doughnuts. If you don’t have a doughnut pan, you could make these into muffins (you’ll have to bake them a bit longer), but that really wouldn’t be as much fun, in my opinion. 

For the doughnuts (adapted from Food Family Finds):

1 cup all-purpose flour

¼ cup + 2 TBSP. granulated sugar

¼ cup cocoa powder

½ tsp. baking powder

½ tsp. baking soda

½ tsp. salt

¼ cup + 3 TBSP. milk

1 egg, beaten

½ tsp. vanilla

1 TBSP. unsalted butter, melted

For the glaze (from my fried doughnut recipe):

2 TBSP. unsalted butter

1 TBSP. milk

1 tsp. honey

1/2 tsp. vanilla

1 ounce semi-sweet chocolate, chopped

2/3 cup icing sugar, sifted

Sprinkles!

Preheat the oven to 325°F. Spray a 6-count doughnut pan with non-stick spray. Set aside.

For the doughnuts: In a medium bowl, sift the dry ingredients together. In a separate bowl, combine the wet ingredients. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until just combined. The batter will be very thick. Divide the batter between the six doughnut cavities (each should be about 3/4 full). I recommend piping the batter into the cavities. Bake for about 12 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into one of the doughnuts comes out clean. Allow the doughnuts to cool in the pan for a few minutes and then invert them onto a cooling rack.

For the glaze, combine the butter, milk, honey, and vanilla in a small saucepan over medium heat. Once the butter has melted, add in the chocolate and whisk until smooth. Remove from heat and add the icing sugar, stirring until combined. Dip the cooled doughnuts into the glaze and cover with chocolate sprinkles. Enjoy immediately! Leftovers can be stored in an airtight container for a couple of days.

Double Chocolate Baked Doughnuts | Once Upon a Recipe

Looking for more baked doughnut inspiration?

I highly recommend these baked cinnamon sugar doughnuts by Shutterbean (seriously amazing) and these blueberry doughnuts with lemon and cream cheese glaze (yes please!) by Hungry Girl Por Vida. Bomb. If that doesn’t inspire you to buy a doughnut pan, I don’t know what will. Have a great weekend!

Conquering Fear | Chocolate Glazed Doughnuts

Well hello there friends! I bet you were starting to think that I’d fallen off the face of the earth. Fortunately, I’m still kicking. In truth, I’ve been working my arse off. The intense training schedule continues. After a day of work and a hard run, I’m lucky if I get some decent food past my lips, let alone photograph it and come up with an accompanying witty post.

But I must admit, I’m kind of using this whole running thing as a license to eat whatever the hell I want. Thankfully I’m a reasonable person (most of the time), and I’m trying to find a good balance between eating healthy and indulging from time to time. A few weeks ago, I had this sudden urge to try making doughnuts from scratch. And it wouldn’t. go. away. So I enlisted the help of a trusty friend of mine and we went to work on a few different recipes.

First, there were sour cream glazed doughnuts. They turned out alright, but not fantastic. Too dense, not cakey enough, and not the right flavor. So we moved onto pumpkin spice cake doughnuts. They were almost fantastic, especially when eaten still warm with a hefty coating of cinnamon sugar. And so we decided to try out a simple yeast doughnut with a rich chocolate glaze. Money.

These were delicious. The doughnut itself is not overly sweet, but the chocolate glaze adds a nice kick of sweet and chocolate.

Ladies and gents, it’s time to conquer our fears.

Yes, fear. I know what you’re thinking. Yeast? Hot oil?! Frying things??!

Don’t be afraid! It’s a lot easier, and more fun, than it looks. Especially in the company of a lovely friend, with some good tunes and a couple glasses of the red stuff. If only all fears were this easy to conquer! And hello?! There are doughnuts at the end of this lil’ journey. If that’s not motivation, I don’t know what is.

Let’s do this!

We start by making a simple yeast dough. Then we let it rise for a little bit until it doubles in size. Look at this beautiful ball of dough! Ain’t she perrty?

Then we roll out the dough and make doughnuts! Supposedly there are fancy doughnut cutters out there, but why not save that cash for another bottle of vino and use a wine glass and a shot glass instead! Doughnut + hole = done! Lay out your cut doughnuts on a lined cookie sheet, cover with a clean tea towel, and allow to rise for another half hour. Get your oil heating while the doughnuts rise.

The one special gadget you will require for this adventure is an oil/candy thermometer. I bought one for $10. When your thermometer reaches 325°F, it’s go time!

Fry, cool, glaze. Easy as pie. And then, EAT!

You can do it, I have faith in you!

Special shout-out to the lovelies that helped me eat my way through these doughnut trials. My heart (and thighs) thank you.

Chocolate Glazed Doughnuts (adapted from La Mia Vita Dolce)

These doughnuts are best enjoyed immediately after they are made, but leftovers can be stored in an airtight container for a couple of days. I recommend warming leftovers briefly in the microwave before enjoying. 

4 tsp. active dry yeast

1/4 cup water

1 cup whole milk

4 TBSP. sugar

1/4 cup butter, melted

4 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

3 eggs

Vegetable oil for deep-frying

Measure the water and milk into a small saucepan and heat over low heat until warm (do not let it boil!). Pour the warm water/milk mixture into a large bowl, and add 1 TBSP. of the sugar, as well as the yeast. Set aside for 10 minutes. The mixture will start to foam, meaning the yeast is working! Add the butter, flour, eggs and remaining sugar to the yeast mixture and mix until a sticky dough forms. Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface to bring it together. Place the dough in an oiled bowl, cover with a tea towel and set aside in a warm place for 45 minutes or until doubled in size.

Knead the dough on a lightly floured surface for 5 minutes or until it feels smooth and elastic when pressed. I punched my dough a few times, and it felt good! I may or may not have pretended that the dough was someone’s face. Unfortunately, karma bit me in the booty and I hit the counter instead. You win some and you lose some. Anyways…

Roll out the dough on a lightly floured surface until 1 cm (1 1/2 inches) thick. Cut 8 cm (3 1/4 inch) rounds with a cutter.  Cut a 3.5 cm (1 1/4 inch) hole in the middle of the rounds. Place on a tray lined with non-stick baking paper, cover with a tea towel and set aside in a warm place for 30 minutes or until risen.

In the meantime, heat the oil (2 inches deep) in a large pot over medium-low heat.  Gently drop the doughnuts one by one into the hot oil. Cook the doughnuts a few at a time for 1 minute each side or until just golden. Drain on a cooling rack set over paper towels.

Chocolate Glaze

2 1/2 cups icing sugar, sifted

1/2 cup unsalted butter

1/4 cup whole milk

1 TBSP. honey

2 tsp. vanilla

4 ounces bittersweet or semisweet chocolate, chopped

Sift icing sugar into a small bowl and set aside. Combine the butter, milk, honey, and vanilla in a medium saucepan and heat over medium heat until butter is melted. Decrease the heat to low, add the chocolate, and whisk until melted. Turn off the heat, add the icing sugar, and whisk until smooth. Dip slightly cooled doughnuts into the glaze and allow to set. Eat immediately!

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