Baked Doughnuts with Krispy Kreme Glaze & Sugar - Cinnamon Coating

Everyone loves doughnuts, am I right? No matter how much I appreciate a beautiful pastry, doughnuts will always be one of my favorite guilty pleasures (which is why I don’t indulge in them too often). For me, the point of a baked doughnut isn’t so much to eat healthier, but more out of convenience. The process of putting new oil in the deep fryer and trying to fry dough seems incredibly tedious to me. I was feeling brave and decided to play with yeast. I could have easily opted for a non-yeast baked doughnut recipe, but I wanted the doughnuts to taste as real deep-fried doughnuts. Or at least, somewhat similar to them.


I made two batches: one with a knock-off Krispy Kreme glaze, and the other batch with a sugar - cinnamon coating. I can’t decide which my favorite is; the Krispy Kreme-glazed doughnuts were tooth achingly sweet, which is just how I like my doughnuts; the sugar - cinnamon coated doughnuts left me moaning after each bite, so I would say it’s a tie between them. Now on to the subject if they tasted like real doughnuts: yes and no. They had a fair hint of doughnut-taste to them, but they also reminded me of cinnamon buns. Either way, they were, hands down, just as delicious as real deep-fried doughnuts. Rating: 6! out of 5.


Baked Doughnuts: adapted from 101cookbooks.com
Makes 2 dozen

Ingredients:
- 1 ⅓ cups warm milk, 95 to 105 degrees
- 1 packet active dry yeast (2 ¼ teaspoons)
- 2 tablespoons butter
- ⅔ cup sugar
- 2 eggs
- 5 cups all-purpose flour
- A pinch of nutmeg, freshly grated
- A pinch of ground cinnamon
- 1 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

Instructions:
- Place ⅓ cup of the warm milk in the bowl of an electric mixer. Stir in the yeast and set aside for five minutes or so. Be sure your milk isn't too hot or it will kill the yeast. Stir the butter and sugar into the remaining cup of warm milk and add it to the yeast mixture. With a fork, stir in the eggs, flour, nutmeg, and salt - just until the flour is incorporated. With the dough hook attachment of your mixer beat the dough for a few minutes at medium speed. This is where you are going to need to make adjustments - if your dough is overly sticky, add flour a few tablespoons at a time. Too dry? Add more milk a bit at a time. You want the dough to pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl and eventually become supple and smooth. Turn it out onto a floured counter-top, knead a few times (the dough should be barely sticky), and shape into a ball.
- Transfer the dough to a buttered (or oiled) bowl, cover, put in a warm place (I turn on the oven at this point and set the bowl on top), and let rise for an hour or until the dough has roughly doubled in size.
- Punch down the dough and roll it out ½-inch thick on your floured countertop. Most people (like myself) don't have a doughnut cutter, instead I use a 2-3 inch cookie cutter to stamp out circles. Transfer the circles to a parchment-lined baking sheet and stamp out the smaller inner circles using a smaller cutter. If you cut the inner holes out any earlier, they become distorted when you attempt to move them. Cover with a clean cloth and let rise for another 45 minutes.
- Bake in a 375 degree oven until the bottoms are just golden, 8 to 10 minutes - start checking around 8. Remove the doughnuts from the oven and let cool for just a minute or two. Eat immediately if not sooner.



Swollen and puffy, ready to be baked.


Krisy Kreme Doughnut Glaze: Wiki How
Ingredients:
- ⅓ cup unsalted butter
- 2 cups powdered sugar
- 1 ½ teaspoons vanilla extract
- 4 - 6 tablespoons hot water

Instructions:
- Heat butter until melted. Remove from heat. Stir in powdered sugar and vanilla until smooth. Stir in water, 1 tablespoon at a time, until desired consistency.

Sugar - Cinnamon Doughnut Coating: My own
Ingredients:
- ¼ cup unsalted butter, melted
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon

Instructions:
- Combine the sugar and cinnamon in a wide, shallow dish. Brush the doughnut with melted butter using a pastry brush. Dip the the doughnut into the sugar-cinnamon mixture and cover the entire doughnut.


Sugar - cinnamon coated.

Krispy Kreme glazed.

I made a giant bread out of the left-over dough.
Tasted exactly like a pain au sucre.

Everything was just too delicious!