A few week ago I really had a craving for donuts and I was eager to try our recently-purchased Wilton Six Donut Pan. I recalled seeing a post on Averie Cooks for baked donuts, and I particularly liked the sounds of these ones, so I decided to give them a try. And the results were fantastic...
First off, they looked great. They took on an appealing golden colour on the outside, but keep in mind that the actual texture of the donuts are somewhat different from conventional fried donuts which have a crispier outside and a soft inside. These had a much more uniform texture throughout--not bad by any means, but just a noteworthy difference from fried donuts. Keep in mind these are substantially more healthy than the fried kind, especially in terms of fat content (see nutritional estimate further down).
They baked into very firm and dense, but also moist and cakey donuts that broke very nicely.
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| Please ignore the horrible muffin top donut experiment in the background |
The donuts had a decidedly subtle flavour. I used salt and I suggest using a touch more (3/4 teaspoon total) and I would also try a bit more cinnamon (3/4 teaspoon), as she suggested, for a bit more of a cinnamon spice punch. I would also consider adding nutmeg (about a 1/4 tsp) to give it a bit more of a familiar old-fashioned donut flavour.
The strong point for these donuts that really makes them outstanding is the icing. The icing is an amazingly smooth and sweet cream cheese icing with a fragrant cinnamon flavour and a hint of vanilla. The vanilla and cinnamon flavour and creamy texture of the icing compliments these donuts perfectly. If you're looking for something to do with any leftover icing, true using it in place of butter or cream cheese on a sweet cinnamon raisin bread or similar. Amazing!
I found that in making the icing you likely won't need both tablespoons of cream cheese (1.5 tbsps at most) and you'll need only a few drops of water/milk, if any. Try using a full teaspoon of vanilla instead of just 1/2 a teaspoon and you probably won't need to thin it anymore with water/milk or else it will be too runny. If the icing gets too runny, which it may, just add more icing sugar until you get the desired consistency.
Overall this is a great recipe for baked donuts. We also tried making the Baked Chocolate Peanut Butter Donuts with Vanilla Peanut Butter Glaze from Averie Cooks, which were good, but were trying to do a lot. Our preference is for the cinnamon version.
Nutrition and Calorie Breakdown
I was curious so I ran a quick estimate of the nutritional content of the donuts using Self Nutrition Data. All things considered, these are very healthy donuts. The donuts come in at slightly over 200 calories each with the icing, with only 3 grams of fat and 42 grams of carbs of which 26 are sugar. See nutrition facts below or click here to see the full nutritional profile.
Using nutritional data from Tim Horton's, a comparable store-bought donut (I would use an old-fashioned glazed as a comparison) would be about 320 calories with 19 grams of fat. These "cake donuts" fall somewhere in the middle of the calorie range for donuts. The lowest calorie donuts are still the chocolate/maple/honey dip "yeast donuts" which each have 210 calories and only 8 grams of fat.
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| Nutrition Info for Baked Cinnamon Bun Donuts |
