Whole Wheat Baked Doughnuts

I am oh so very excited about today’s post!

You see, I got this new thing that has been sneaking into blogs slowly, but surely. I personally think it will take over cake pops, maybe even cupcakes.

Wanna know what this marvelous thing is? It’s the baked donut. No, it’s not a yeasted dough which you cut out and bake (which would be cool to do sometime), but these baked doughnuts are made in a donut pan. I’m in love with this pan. 

I haven’t had a traditional, deep-fried, glazed doughnut in about a year and a half. I don’t eat much (if any) fried foods. The last time I ate at a fast food restraint was last summer when my family and I were going to see a play in New York and we needed to get some grub, fast. I don’t remember it being particularly great. But before last summer, I hadn’t had fast food since the first semester of my sophomore year in high school; it’s now the second semester of my senior year. I just don’t like the weird bloaty feeling that it gives and because I haven’t had the stuff in so long, the smell kind of repulses me.

Boy, did I get off on a tangent. Here I am writing about gross fast food when I should be talking about these delicious donuts. By the way, have you noticed I’ve been switching the spelling from donut to doughnut? Yeah, that’s because I have no clue how to spell it and Good doesn’t help because pictures of doughnuts pop up for each spelling. Sigh. Oh well.

So these donuts are healthy, but just because they are healthy, don’t turn your nose up at them. Like I said before, these babies are baked in a special pan. (Don’t have that pan? Click here. Izy didn’t have a donut pan either and she made an awesome one out of tin foil.) Also, instead of using all-purpose flour, I used whole wheat flour because 1. I have about half a bag full of the stuff and I need to use it, and 2. I thought it would give a nice flavor and color to the doughnuts, and I was right!

The batter is so easy to whip together, seriously. The batter came together in about 5 minutes, tops! And it’s really not a messy recipe either. Don’t you hate it when you dirty up like all the bowls in your house? Yeah, this one dirties up like two and that’s counting the measuring cup.

The doughnuts have a sweet, yet hearty flavor, due to the whole wheat, and probably taste best within a few hours after they have been baked. After about 12-16 hours, they get a little sticky (the powdered sugar that I put on could have something to do with that), but they still tasted wonderful. I can’t wait to keep trying out different donut recipes because to me, these doughnuts rival their fried counterpart.

Whole Wheat Baked Doughnuts

Adapted from For the Love of Cooking
Makes 6 donuts

Ingredients
1 cup whole wheat flour
¼ cup + 2 tbsp sugar
1 tsp baking powder
½ tsp salt
¼ cup buttermilk
2 tbsp milk
1 egg
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tbsp unsalted butter, melted and cooled

Directions

1. Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F. Coat the donut pan in nonstick spray and set aside.
2. In a medium bowl, combine the flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In another bowl (or a measuring cup) stir the buttermilk and milk (I used a combination because I was using buttermilk powder and I was too lazy to convert the powder to make two tbsp of buttermilk. You can use all buttermilk if you wish.), egg, vanilla and butter. Pour the liquid ingredients into the dry and mix until well combined.
3. Fill a piping bag (I just used a zip lock bag and cut a hole in the corner) with the batter. Fill each donut compartment about half full with the batter. Bake for 7-9 minutes or until the donut feels soft when poked. (My doughnuts did not spring back when they were poked, but they were nevertheless done.) Cool in the pan for about 2 minutes. Invert the doughnuts onto a cooling rack to cool completely. Dust with powdered sugar and serve.