Mini Donut Test Kitchen
Remember when I made mini-donuts and promised you a recipe? And then never gave you one? Well, today I decided to keep my word. I got up, made some tea, and set to work. My house is covered in donuts!
My first attempt wasn’t a complete failure, but I wasn’t happy with the result. They didn’t rise very well, leaving one side of each donut flat and craggy. It’s not that I expected a recipe I made up to work on the first try, but I was still hoping to get lucky.
I did get lucky on my second try. I reduced the fat content and upped the soy milk and the baking powder. Success! They rose much better, had a nicer texture, and were prettier. Here are the two tries side-by-side:
Much better, huh? Below is the recipe for the donuts and the glaze, directions for glaze, pictures of the whole process, and even a video.
Oh, and did I mention? There’s chocoalte coated ones, too!
Mini Baked Donuts
Make 20 Donuts
Dry Ingredients:
1 Cup All Purpose Flour
1/2 Cup Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp (scant) Nutmeg
1 tiny pinch or shake Cinnamon
Wet Ingredients:
1/2 Cup Soymilk
1/2 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
1/2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
Egg Replacer for 1 Egg
4 Tbs Earth Balance
Preheat oven to 350º F
In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients with a whisk to mix thoroughly. Combine wet ingredients in a small sauce pan over medium low heat and mix until earth balance is melted. This mixture should NOT get too hot, you should be able to stick your finger in the mixture. It should feel slightly warm. If you burn yourself, 1) it’s not my fault! and 2) it’s too hot for the dough!
Add wet to dry and mix until just combined. It should form a very soft dough. Like this:
Using a tablespoon measure, scoop out dough into your ungreased nonstick mini-donut pan. Smooth out the top of the dough with your fingers, this will make for more even, prettier donuts, but isn’t crucial.
As you can see, the dough sits just below the rim. If you over fill, your donuts will come out looking like it has a little muffin top. Not the end of the world, but not very donut-like either.
Bake for 12 minutes. They should not be browned on top, but a tester will come out clean. Invert hot pan over a cutting board or cooling rack to release donuts. Allow to cool completely before decorating.
Time for toppings!
Glaze with Sprinkles
1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar (lump free!)
1 Tbs Soymilk
Bowl full of sprinkles (1/4 to 1/2 cup, ish?)
Whisk soymilk and powdered sugar together. Dip the “bottom” half of the donut (the side with the nicer shape) into the glaze, let some drip off, then dip glaze-side down into sprinkles. Transfer to a wire rack that has been set on top of some parchment paper. The excess glaze will drip through the rack onto the paper for easy cleaning later.
Chocolate Dip
This is the easy part. Melt 6 oz of high quality fairly sweet chocolate over low heat in a double boiler. Remove from heat and stir until chocolate is smooth and barely warm to the touch. I should mention that you should be very careful not to get any water in the chocolate or it could seize, and no one likes that!
Dip your donuts one-by-one into the chocolate until completely covered. Place donut on your wire rack to drip off excess chocolate – it’ll make for a much smoother appearance than if you try to scrape off excess chocoalte with your fingers. Allow to set until chocolate isn’t so shiny and can be picked up without making a sticky mess!
*Edit!! So, I waited until the chocolate was set and realized that my donuts had glued themselves to the rack, making the bottoms rip off when your try to pick one up. I think it’d be better to let these set on parchment paper! Also, use a decently sweet chocolate, mine was too bitter.
Enjoy!
This is a GREAT tutorial on baked donuts! I love how low-fat, low-cal they are! I think I’ll get myself a donut pan for St.Patrick’s day.
Oh man! I have been eyeing the mini-doughnut pan in my drawer for a while… this is a good excuse as any to put it to use!
hey look gorgeous! do you think it would be possible to make them gluten free?
You are so awesome – my hero – for making these!
I will try to do these with powdered sugar and report back to you.
What egg sub did you use in your recipe? I tend to find that starting with whatever the origional had, and then modifying for my personal taste works better than guessing.
It’s awesome to find a doughnut that doesn’t use yeast and still looks great. Thanks!
I just need a mini-donut pan, cuz I’m so all over these! awesome demo & file this under YUMYUM! :o)
Thanks everyone!
Stephanie – I don’t have much experience with gluten free baking, so unfortunately I’m not the one to ask! I should try to learn more about it!
EtherMaiden – I used Ener-g Egg replacer. :)
Oh my god. I’m speechless. These look like the best doughnuts- who knew I’d have a shot at making my own?… Thank you!
I am drooling…my boyfriend would probably marry me on the spot if I made these for him.
Wow!! These look amazin! Thanks for sharing!
These look incredible. I would love to experiment with different flavors and textures. I have always been fond of cake donuts. Good job!
So beautiful! Great job, as always. …And I really must get myself one of those little donut pans…
This made my boyfriend and I very excited. He is obsessed with doughnuts, and I try to be healthy. We had no idea that doughnut pans existed. Now we can make the yummy treats without lots of heavy grease. Thanks for improving our relationship!
Stephanie, spelt flour is a perfect substitute. These look so yummy-now to find a donut pan!
First off, I am fairly new to this site…love it. I made these this week and they turned out great. I brought them to a committe meeting and they were a big hit!
One question, some of the donuts stuck to the non-greased, non-stick pan, so I had little chunks missing from the bottom of the donuts. (Of course, no one even noticed because they thought they were so cute!) What would happen if I used a canola spray on the pan?
oiling the pan is SO necessary! my first batch was a mess, but the second was perfect once I sprayed the pan with oil.
wow, wonderful!
Wow, I must say… I just started being a vegan, and with all the foods I can’t eat [like donuts], I’ve been discouraged.
I think you just saved my veganism. Thanks!
=)
should we use plain soymilk or vanilla soy milk?
Christine – Go ahead and spray the pan. :)
Carolina – I used plain, but you could probably use vanilla if you want.
Thanks everyone for the comments!
I had no idea there were mini donut pans. Hmm, I learn something new everyday.
These were absolutely delicious! I loved them to pieces! Perfect!
this recipe is amazing! i havent been vegan very long i get so sick of other teens (and some rude annoying adults!) telling me i cant eat yummy foods! BOY ARE THEY WRONG! ur little donuts have helped me to prove to those suckers that i eat BETTER and YUMMIER foods than them! AND they are low-everything!
u r a life changer! thanx xxx
i have these in the oven right now and they are rising way too much…..eek. what did i do wrong? also my dough was so sticky it was really hard to get in the pan and spread around….
okay…the ones that rose alot were overfilled. premature baking anxiety… :)
hi! umm i really wanna make these this is my first week going veganand i dont want it to be hard i have so many questions its not even funny and i need to talk to someone who is vegetarian/vegan beacause i dont know anything if you could please email me that would be awesome!thanks
these look fab! can’t wait to try ‘em!
I made my own cake donuts over a year ago and they seemed to dense so I think i’ll try this recipe.
I made the jam filled ones out of Sinfully Vegan last year and they were amazing.
Stef
i have been vegan for 8 months…and i can’t wait to taste these they look great!xoxo-bianca
These are great. I’ve been waiting for about 2 months for my pans to get here and finally just decided to get some “classic” sized donut pans. They still worked out beautifully. We dipped ‘em in chocolate and sprinkled with unsweetened coconut flakes. So good. Plus, if you stick the chocolate coated ones in the freezer for about 10 minutes, the chocolate will set faster. I kindof think that the texture and taste of them resemble Twinkies? But everyone else who was vegan who tried them said they were just like donuts. That’s good. Also, I only put a *pinch* of nutmeg per batch. I sneekily tried the batter a few weeks ago by lumping it onto a cookie sheet and they ended up tasting good, but really nutmeg-y. Like a nutmeg sugar cookie. Just go ahead and wait for the donut pans, folks.
Wow I love your donut!!!
OMG I love doughnuts and since becoming vegan 41/2 years ago, I thought I would never eat one again. They’re great dipped in glaze and unsweetened coconut flakes. Thanks a much!!!
I came across ur blog a day back and since then have been hooked in ur blog :-) U have a great blog and the pictures are owesome. Looking at ur mini doughnuts have made me want to try it out . But 2 questions :
1) Can I replace Apple cider vinegar with other types of vinegar?
2) I dont think I can get Earth Balance in Malaysia….any substitute for it ?
Thatz abt it .Bye for now.
mmmm the sprinkle ones are to die for!!
A good way to make these gluten free is to substitute a gluten-free baking mix for the flour and reduce the amount of baking powder in the recipe by half. I used Arrowhead Mills brand and it worked fine– but I think there are others; incidentally, this works well in cakes and other recipes too. Great recipe..thanks!
Would you mind giving the width and depth of the mini donut compartments of the pan? I’d like to order one online, but there seem to be many variations of “mini” size.
These doughnuts are amazing! For some reason my mixture isn’t doughy at all, it’s just like cake mixture really.. but the end result seems to be the same! I love playing around with different coloured icing and also dipping in chocolate :)
I found your site and these doughnuts look so incredible I ran out and bought myself a doughnut pan, but got the regular size. Any tips on baking them in the full size pan?
Wow these were delicious, they were very soft and moist! BTW, I did not have any ENER-G and just used a TBSP. of applesauce and that worked out fine.
I also have the regular sized doughnut pan and you still cook them for 12 minutes.
Thanks for this wonderful recipe and I am looking forward to your cookbook!
I made these & they were FABULOUS! In fact, I made another vegan donut recipe the same night & it failed! craziness.
Anyway, I’d love to blog about these & post the recipe (giving many links & much respect to your blog & awesomeness), but I wanted to make sure that’s OK.
I also voted for you on the VegNews awards! Love your blog!
What is Earth Balance? Is it a product only found in the USA? I’m in Aust. Thanks :)
Hey, Am hoping to try out the recipe. What is this egg substitute? Am not sure what to use.. xx
I make these every time i have a surprise visitor as they only take 5 mins to whip up. I use orgran egg replacer and nuttelex for earth balance. I roll them in cinnamon, nutmeg & caster (superfine) sugar as soon as i take them from the oven and no one can tell the dif between these and store bought fried donuts. They are light and fluffy and the sugar gives them a slightly crisp shell. Heaven. Filling the pan was a bit messy so I put the mix in a snaplock bag and cut off the corner for perfect round donuts.
Is it just me or did this blog say mini-bunt pans a while ago?
Well, it doesn’t matter, because I found a mini-bunt/doughnut pan and it’s beautiful and I am making these for breakfast today. :3