Baked Doughnuts, from King Arthur Flour

By Foodiewife

Who doesn't love a freshly made doughnut? In trying to "healthify" a deep-fried treat, I found this recipe on King Arthur Flour. You do need to buy a doughnut pan (I found mine at World Market) in order to bake these into a doughnut shape that we all know and love. I sprayed a little water on the baked doughnuts and then rolled them in cinnamon sugar. Were they as good as Krispy Kreme? No. With a cup of coffee, they actually tasted better the next day. We found them to be a satisfying way to enjoy a doughnut without all the fat gram guilt. It's certainly worth a try.

Ingredients

• 1 cup Unbleached Pastry flour or 7/8 1 cup Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 3 tablespoons dried buttermilk powder*
• 2 large eggs
• 3 tablespoons vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons water
• If you don't have buttermilk powder on hand, substitute 2 tablespoons buttermilk or yogurt for the water-- and I used 1% buttermilk.

Preparation

Step 1

For a non-stick doughnut pan, preheat to 325F
Directions

1) Whisk together all of the dry ingredients in a medium-sized mixing bowl.

2) In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, oil and water (or buttermilk or yogurt) until foamy.

3) Pour the liquid ingredients all at once into the dry ingredients and stir just until combined.

4) Butter or grease the doughnut pan; non-stick pan spray works well here.

Note: even though the pan is non-stick, since the doughnuts are low-fat they may stick unless you grease the pan first. Fill each doughnut form half full.

5) Bake the doughnuts in a preheated 375°F oven for 10 to 12 minutes. When done, they'll spring back when touched lightly, and will be quite brown on the top.

6) Remove the doughnuts from the oven, remove them from the pan, and allow them to cool on rack.

Glaze with icing, or coat with cinnamon-sugar or any non-melting sugar.

Tips from our bakers

* Using pastry flour will make a more tender doughnut.

HELPFUL TIPS FROM COMMENTS LEFT ON THE KING ARTHUR WEBSITE:
"I added some of the KAF cinnamon flavor bites and that added some extra cinna-zing."

"The first time I made them I did a cinnamon and sugar mixture and the second time I did a glaze. Mix 1 cup sifted confectioners' sugar sifted with 2 t milk or water, then add 2 t light corn syrup.""

I also do a version omitting the spices and substituting a teaspoon of vanilla, then add 1/4-1/2 cup melted chocolate chips to the glaze before dipping to make chocolate glazed vanilla donuts."

"This is a wonderful recipe, though I haven't made it exactly as called for. I added 1/2 cup of pumpkin puree and 1-2 tablespoons of additional flour. And I increased the cinnamon just a bit since we love a little more spice in our donuts! The cake enhancer really does keep the donuts moist and fresh longer. Something I did on the third batch, I put the batter in a disposable, plastic pastry bag, cut the end off and filled the mini donut pan that way. It makes for a neater donut and helps control over-fill. I'm not sure if it's because I added the pumpking, but I ended up with 2 1/2 dozen mini donuts. I believe the recipe calls for a dozen."

"Doughnut holes from an aebleskiver pan: This cured my cravings for a doughnut using an aebleskiver pan! "