Cinnamon & Sugar Baked Cake Donuts

Cinnamon & Sugar Baked Cake Donuts  |  04.11.16

I am a huge fan of donuts. Really any dessert or sweet, but definitely donuts. I’ve always wanted to make them, but not sure I wanted to attempt the frying portion of it all. In the meantime, I bought a donut pan to try baking them. I will tell you that baking them in a pan is not quite the same as the fried doughy goodness, but in a pinch it’ll do. So far, I’ve tried three baked donut recipes and this one is my fave out of the three. It’s super simple and quite tasty, plus I had all of the ingredients on hand which puts it at the top of my list for sure. 

I love the creative minds of the donut gods out there that come up with maple bacon and fruitloop topped donuts, but my go-to has always been the simple cinnamon & sugar cake donut. It’s a no-frill delicious breakfast/everyday food and I will always have a love for it. While as I mentioned the fried cake donut is obviously going to be better, you should give these a shot as well (original recipe found from The Busy Baker). The $10 donut pan is definitely worth it for these little morsels of goodness. 

​Prep time: 5 minutes          Cook time: 7-9 minutes
Yield: 12 donuts ( I halved the recipe – the less donuts I have around, the better 🙂 ) 

Ingredients:

2 cups All Purpose flour
3/4 cup white sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon sea salt
3/4 cup low fat buttermilk
2 eggs
2 tablespoons canola oil 

1/2 cup white sugar and 2 teaspoons cinnamon for dipping 

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 425 degrees. 
2. Grease a donut pan with cooking spray and set aside. 
3. Whisk together flour, sugar, baking powder, nutmeg, cinnamon and sea salt in a large bowl until they’re combined.
4. In a separate bowl combine buttermilk, eggs and oil, whisking them together with a fork. 
5. Combine wet ingredients into dry ingredients. 
6. Using a rubber spatula, fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients until a batter begins to form and flour disappears. Be careful not to over mix! This will make the donuts dry and tough. 
7. If you have a piping bag, spoon the batter in the piping bag and pipe a small amount of batter into each of the 12 greased donut cups in a circular motion about half full. Be careful not to over-fill as the batter rises quite a bit. If you don’t have a piping bag (I didn’t as you can tell by the pics!) just spoon the dough in each donut cup. No, it’s not as a pretty, but seriously, it tastes the same 🙂 
8.) Bake the donuts 7-9 minutes. As soon as the donuts have browned slightly on top and spring back when touched, they’re ready to be removed from the oven. 
9.) Mix the 1/2 cup sugar and 2 teaspoons of cinnamon together in a bowl. 
10.) As soon as your ready to handle the donuts without burning your hands, dip each side into the cinnamon and sugar mixture and move the donut to a cooling rack to cool complete. 

These are best enjoyed right after being made. I always forget and put them in ziplock bags to maintain their softness and eat them later and then the cinnamon and sugar get a little sticky/wet. They still taste good, but their texture gets all thrown off, probably not the best idea. Overall, a very enjoyable breakfast treat!