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!
Okay, perhaps your mini-doughnut pan is just slightly smaller than my mini-bunt pan, or I missed something. That recipe only made 9 doughnuts for me. :3
But they are the 9 most beautiful, tastey, pretty, and lovely doughnuts I have ever seen. Best. Recipe. Ever.
I made the donuts with a little variation by using flax seeds instead of egg replacer. They are really yummy! I made these for my 3 year old daughter and her friends and they loved it!
I’m New! What is Earth Balance that is used in the donut recipe and what can be used in place of it? thanks!
fine presentation~~
good guide for first try not like other ha ha…
Thanks so much, you’ve answered my 4 year old’s dreams … she’s deadly allergic to eggs and I’ve been searching forever for vegan recipes like this.
Is that earth balance buttery sticks or shortening? There are several.
What kind of egg replacer did you use? There are also several. Hope I hear from you soon.
The Earth Balance is the brand’s margarine – it comes in a tub, and it is simply called Earth Balance. I use Ener-G Egg Replacer. Hope that helps!
Oh, I’m so glad you replied so quickly! Thank you. Well I just made a batch of these donuts- using non vegan ingredients. Real butter, and 1 egg. Thats the only changes I made. I noticed the batter was runny- I’m guessing because of the egg- so I had to add about 3/4 cup more flour. Baked them up- and to my complete surprise- pure perfection! I will gather your vegan indrediants and bake another batch. Any problems- I’ll leave you a message since you reply. thank you!
Ooh, I am so excited to try these! Couldn’t find any donut pans locally, though, so I’m going with mini-muffin pans. Hopefully they’ll still turn out alright!
They turned out pretty great! A little dense and a little burned, but still delicious. A mini-muffin pan, for anyone out there without a mini-donut pan, will suffice in a pinch!
I’ am a professional donut maker/baker. I prepared the donut recipe and really enjoyed the donuts… You can work at my donut shop any time!!!
I made these with beautiful results using a all-purpose GF flour blend.
Then, last night I was making gluten-free Vegan Pumpkin Cookies (http://amberbrownisfeelingblue.blogspot.com/2008/01/gf-vegan-pumpkin-cookies.html) and I used a Wilton bag to pipe the dough into the mini-donut pan. Chocolate chip pumpkin donuts with glaze (I used powdered sugar and DariFree instead of soymilk since I’m allergic to soy)…yum! These were extra delicious, especially the ones I coated with melted Enjoy Life chocolate chips. Yummy little Hypoallergenic Donettes…perfection!
Thanks for the recipe, and inspiration to keep trying new mini-donut flavors!
i’ve tried making these twice…once with nutmeg and the other without. both times everyone who tried them said they were tasty but not at all like donuts.
Would it be possible to use whole wheat flour for these or perhaps half whole wheat, half all-purpose?
I’m so excited by these! What do you consider a decently sweet chocolate? Semi-sweet? Sweeter?
I love this recipe. I made the glazed donuts and they turned out heavenly. I’m curious though– have you developed a chocolate cake donut recipe? I haven’t been able to find any vegan recipes, and my attempt to veganize some non-vegan recipes have been pretty un-awesome. Have you worked it out?
Thanks so much!
I’m urgently seeking a recipe for ‘Lolo’ a cocnut dish from the South pacific region. I’m in country West Australia and want to try some Pacific Island recipes for my Country Women’s Association International Day. HELP!!! PLEAsE>
I can’t even begin to describe the joy I experience when my little tiny donuts are all powdered up with sugar. These are the best donuts ever. Ever. EVER. I make them too much. I’m too impatient to chocolate coat them!
ellen, spelt contains gluten, though less than more common varieties of wheat grain.
some common flours that don’t contain gluten are buckwheat, rice, and potato, unfortunately i wouldn’t be able to lead to in a direction as to how to mix these together to make a gf pancake.
bob’s red mill however makes a gluten-free vegan optional pancake mix that is quite good.
i just wanted to let you know we tried this recipe and absolutely loved it. i took a photo and it ended up on tastespotting if you wanted to have a look ^___^ thanks again for the great and simple recipe!! http://www.tastespotting.com/post/10593/
Thank you thank you thank you…every time I crave donuts I find these horrid recipes that require frying and I don’t eat fried foods…so when I stumbled upon these….let’s just say my husband wanted to bring out the donut pan and start baking…at midnight. Thank you again!
You have brought tremendous joy to my vegan household with this incredible recipe. I could not believe how good the donuts came out!
Have you tried doubling the recipe yet? Do you think they will come out okay if I just double all of the ingredients? We ate the first batch so quickly, I think I need larger batches!
I’m the only vegan in my household and I have fun sneaking vegan style foods into the “fried and foolish” members of my household. Ha ha this is one recipe that they loved and didn’t know it was vegan and low cal. I cut out the sugar and added chopped nuts and raisins. They absolutely loved the donuts! For those of you out there who do NOT have donut mold pans…use regular muffin pans or mini muffin pans. If you have neither type of pans…try this…scoop the dough into a plastic bag and cut out a corner; squeeze out “donut sticks!”
OMG I made these this morning. I didn’t have a donut pan so I used a muffin tin. I dipped them in melted sunspire chocolate chips and dusted with organic coconut. They were amazing! My BF loved them as well. So now I just ordered a donut pan from Amazon! Thank you. I live in a really rural area that is not vegan friendly so I am ridiculously excited to be able to actually have a donut. THANK YOU!
BTW I used regular whole wheat flour. They came out perfectly.
thank you who ever posted this my little bro cant live with out donuts and he’s allergic to eggs so thank you again.
Sandra Jayne – did you use the regular whole wheat flour measure for measure, or did you have to make any adjustments with the flour/water? Also, did you add any vital wheat gluten to it? Would it even be needed? (I add it to all my breads but that’s always with using yeast, so not sure if it’s needed in something with no yeast)
If anyone else used WW flour, please chime in. I don’t use any white flours, only regular or white whole wheat.
I don’t use sugar and was wondering if anyone tried this using agave? If so, what measurement did you use? I don’t follow the vegan lifestyle, but usually don’t even use honey when a recipe calls for it, but instead, can sub. agave measure for measure – but for sugar, it’s only easy to convert small amounts, having to use less agave than sugar when more than about a 1/4 cup is called for.
I’ve hoped to find a good tried and true baked donut recipe – this looks great!
THANKS!
Your sour cream banana bundt cake looked so good that I had to try it. It came out looking exactly like your picture and tasted unlike any other banana bread I ever made. This is truly a light banana cake and probably the best banana cake you will ever make. Everyone loved it at home, so I made one for work and of course everyone loved it. Now I have to make copies for everyone. (I just cheated a little by adding one egg-only because I am not vegan -yet! but force of habit made me do it.) I love your blog and can’t tear myself away. thank you
Made this twice. First time I altered recipe w GF flour, real egg, real butter. Made in mini muffin pan, filled w low sugar rasberry jam. Results: Runny batter, and then 12 very cake-like doughnuts, but moist and tasted like a doughnut, my husband gobbled them up. They took about 15-18 min to bake.
Next try, followed recipe exactly except used real egg. Results: Cooked in 10 minutes, very light and airy, more like a corn muffin, filled some w jelly and did some w frost and sprinkles.
Consensus: liked the first recipe better and I am thinking it was the fat from the real butter which gave the density. Going to try first recipe again w EB. Also will glaze and then fill w rasberry jelly. This is a great forum, thank you all!
you have the most tastylicious doughnuts on earth. keep up the good baking.
This recipe was just what I was looking for. We just found out our daughter is lactose intolerant and donuts are one of her favorites. We were paying a fortune for them at a specialty store. I ordered the pan from Amazon-got here in two days. I didn’t have any soy milk, so substituted rice milk. It worked well. As the recipes says, don’t overfill the pan. The first batch I filled about 2/3 full and it made the muffin looking ones. The second batch I filled about 1/2 full and they came out perfect. I dipped them in melted Earth Balance and then in a cinnamon sugar mixture. Next time I will brush them with the Earth Balance as they were pretty buttery. The best review is my daughter’s. She said they are not just good, they are great!!!!! Thanks for sharing!!
Yummm thanks for this recipe; true enough that being vegan is the best thing I could have done in my life, but there are things I miss…. like doughnuts! :0) I used the piping method with a ziploc bag, small hole cut in one corner, and it turned out great (no doughnut pan here at home and I had to make them as soon as I saw the recipe!) I used spelt flour and it worked perfect… thanks so much!!
Hi
The recipe looks great.
What is Earth Balance -s it oil?
Unsure if it is something I can get in Australia/
Thanks
Can I make this recipe without a mini-donut pan? :-/
Would ground flax seeds w/water sub the egg replacer okay?
woooww….this is destiny!!!My husband just bought me an electric mini doughnut pan,and found today ur wonderful blog…and this cute mini donuts recipe..thanks!!!
i think you just upped sales in the mini donut pan industry… :]
I just made these and they were just to eat up. hehe :) I think I made a little to much dough, but that was solved by eating it :) my boyfriend LOVED them! glazing them tomorrow. Thank you for sharing this with the world <3