baked doughnuts

I have been curious about doughnuts, fried and baked, for a long time.  This past birthday, my husband, Eric, got me mini and regular doughnut pans.  I've waited for the weather to cool so that using the oven isn't too much of a heat stroke, and finally today I tried baking doughnuts in those very awesome pans.  I tried two recipes.  One was vegan, for the sake of Eric.  

The vegan recipe found here was pretty good, although mine weren't 100% vegan as I didn't have any time to purchase egg replacer, so I had to use regular egg.  I overfilled the doughnut pan and it created mini doughnuts with muffin tops... not the most attractive.  The doughnuts were pretty good, but don't expect Mighty O Donuts.  The doughnuts were very light and airy, although, almost too much so.  Since I overfilled the pans, I wanted to try a different batch, so I decided to try this King Arthur recipe but tried making it healthier by taking out the buttermilk and oil and using applesauce and dairy-free yogurt instead.  This is the other recipe.

Recipe adapted from King Arthur

(with minor changes)

7/8 cup all purpose flour

1/2 cup sugar

1 tsp. baking powder

1/4 teaspoon salt 

1 teaspoon cinnamon

 1/8 tsp. nutmeg

2 large eggs

3-4 tbs. applesauce (oil replacer)*
2 tbs. coconut milk yogurt*

*instead of using applesauce, you can use the original recipe with 3 tbs. vegetable oil

*If you don't have access to coconut milk yogurt, try soy yogurt or any other yogurt.

• 4 ounces Round Table Unbleached Pastry flour or King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
• 3 1/2 ounces sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1 ounce dried buttermilk powder
• 2 large eggs
• 1 1/4 ounces vegetable oil
• 2 tablespoons water

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

In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, oil and yogurt until foamy.

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

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.

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.

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.   For glazes, try: here here or here I am going to continue trying different baked doughnut recipes and posting them, at least until I find the best one.