I tasted my first donut at the age of 26 when I came to this country. There was a Krispy Kreme near my grad school and I went there with my classmates. I remember asking what type I should get for my first donut and got a glazed donut. I remember almost gagging on it with the sweetness of the topping. I since tried a bunch of varieties in Krispy Kreme and Dunkin Donuts and settled on the curler and the ones with the creme filling as ones I could tolerate. Little did I know that 10 years later, I’d be inspired to have some adventures in donut making and try some donut recipes!
My donut experience was limited to post race food and a trip to Dunkin Donuts once in 4-5 months. Until, my colleague at House of Carbs directed his baking talents from biscotti to donuts. And I could not get enough of the cake donuts with their wonderful frostings that he’d bring!
I knew I’d score major points with my kids if I could send them donut treats, so I got a donut maker and tried them on my own. The minions have taken them as treats to school and come back wanting more!
On the left: Chocolate Ganache frosting on Chocolate cake base
Right: Nutella frosting with biscoff sprinkles on vanilla cake base.
Even though I’m not a good photographer, I wanted to share the foolproof way of making these yummy treats. If you have little kids at school, you are super busy with training or work and you want to send them with home made treats for once instead of store bought – these are for you! Yes, cupcakes are all the rage and you can make them at home but unless you are good at decorating, they will have a distinct homemade look to it.
I got the Sunbeam Donut Maker from Amazon. I tossed around getting a donut pan instead (one less gadget at home), but decided that I’m much more likely to use a “maker” than a pan. (I got a waffle maker some months ago and we use it regularly. Something about a small appliance that does its job in 3min.
Sunbeam FPSBDMM921 Mini Donut Maker
Photo: Amazon
This is a mini donut maker and the donut is about 1.5-2 bite sizes. I’m also getting one that is slightly bigger – I decided that the medium sized donuts would be good for the grownups while the mini works great for kids.
I took the easy way out and used a boxed cake mix both times (I told you this is great for busy working moms who don’t have baking skills!).
Cake mixes – the secret savior of moms everywhere!
All that is needed is to follow instructions on the box and you are good to go! I added in a little less water than recommended so that the batter would be a little more thick.
I scooped the batter into ziploc baggies for easy dispensing. The plates were quite hot and I had to be extra careful to hold the ziploc baggie higher up so as not to touch the plate.
Adorable little things! It was hard not to eat the mini cakes before frosting!
And then came the fun part of frosting!
For my first batch of donuts, I ended up using nutella. Mainly because I had NO idea how to make the basic frosting even. At first I tried smearing Nutella straight from the jar. But it was painful – like making some 60-75 Nutella sandwiches. So I mixed some milk with Nutella to make it a little running and I could just dip the donut in it. Taking inspiration from House of Carbs, I crushed some Biscoff biscuits I had and sprinkled the Biscoff pieces on the Nutella dipped donut. The end result was simply Oh. Em. Gee.
The image is too dark (Told you I was no photographer) but shows how tiny the donut really is as it lays in my palm!
The minions wanted chocolate the next time and so I looked into the fearful sounding Chocolate Ganache! *Gulp*
It turned out to be super simple to make. All I needed was
1. Chocolate Chips
2. Heavy cream
I heated 1/2 cup heavy cream in a pan and while that was happening, chopped the chocolate chips in my Vitamix (any ordinary food processor should do). Once the cream was bubbling along the edges, I poured it into the Vitamix with chopped chocolate chips and whirled it for about a minute. That’s it – done!
The chocolate ganache on chocolate cake donut was a double chocolate treat! The kids then of course had to add in sprinkles. I think that the sprinkles messed up the texture for me and I wouldn’t add it if I was making the donuts for myself.
(Kind of looks like Christmas or St. Patricks donuts!)
Are you a natural baker who loves doing things from scratch or are you more like me who considers the local supermarket as my BFF when it comes to school treats?
Have you tried making donuts? Or anything else other than cupcakes? Share your recipe and experiments!
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