Chocolate Crumb Donuts

Senior ditch day: it’s pretty awesome. But I feel kind of guilty. I’m usually a really diligent person who never EVER wants to miss school, even when I’m sick. Even when I go on vacation and I miss a day or two of school I get all nervous and anxious because I know that everything important will happen on the day that I’m gone. It’s true. It’s like when your friend misses school and nothing happens, and then you miss school and you have a million things to do for homework and you’ve missed a bazillion tests. Yeah, that sucks. Anyways, at my school the Monday after prom is Senior Ditch Day. Of course it’s not regulated. I found it quite easy to ditch my first two classes, but I did eventually come for my math and physics class because those are my major classes that I can’t afford to miss. Now what did I do on my day off? Got up at 6 to take my sister to school, sat around the house, went to two classes, and did some grocery shopping with my mom. Yeah, I’m a rebel. But I also made donuts. Delicious chocolate donuts with an awesome chocolate streusel.
With finals coming up in just two weeks, graduation just around the corner, and my AP Lit test coming up, I know that my baking will be limited, so I wanted to make something simple, and Senior Ditch Day was the perfect occasion because these were in the oven in about ten minutes and only took about six to cook, so you can reach chocolaty donut heaven in less than twenty minutes.

I found these donuts on one of my favorite blogs. Darla is the genius behind Bakingdom. She creates all sorts of amazing cakes, cookies, pastries, and she’s a huge fan of Harry Potter, so she creates things like this, this, and this. Yeah. She’s amazing, and I love her blog (by the way, I hope to God that I don’t sound creepy because she most likely doesn’t know me at all).

So all creepiness aside when I read about these donuts and saw the pictures, I fell in love. For some reason I wasn’t totally expecting these donuts to have a chocolaty flavor (I tend to have a hard time deciphering chocolate notes in cake-like treats for some reason), but I was wrong. These donuts have an awesome chocolate flavor. I ate four in just one day. I couldn’t help myself, I just wanted more, more, more! They can also be glazed, but I got lazy and didn’t feel like making a glaze, but I bet it would be perfect on these. So next time you find yourself with twenty minutes to spare, preheat your oven and get to baking because these really won’t disappoint you.

Chocolate Crumb Donuts
Adapted from Bakingdom
Makes 6 donuts

Streusel Ingredients
¼ cup brown sugar
½ tbsp. sugar
¼ cup unbleached all-purpose flour
1 tbsp. cocoa powder
1/8 tsp. salt
2 tbsp. cold unsalted butter

Donut Ingredients
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
¼ cup sugar
2 tbsp. brown sugar
2 tbsp. cocoa powder
1 tsp. baking powder
¼ tsp. salt
¼ cup + 2 tbsp. milk
½ tsp. vanilla extract
1 egg
1 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted

Directions
To make the streusel: combine the sugars, flour, cocoa powder, and salt. Rub the cold butter into the mixture until it resembles coarse crumbs. Put the mixture into the freezer while you make the donut batter.

Preheat the oven to 425 F. Grease a donut pan with cooking spray.

To make the donuts: combine the flour, sugars, cocoa powder, baking powder, and salt. In a small bowl, whisk together the milk, vanilla, egg, and melted butter. Pour the liquid mixture into the dry. Whisk or fold the wet ingredients into the dry mixture. The batter will be kinda sticky and want to form together (basically it will look like a giant chocolaty blob).

When the batter has come together fill a piping bag (I used a zip lock bag with a hole cut out of the corner). Pipe the batter into the donut molds of the donut pan. Retreive the chocolate crumb mixture from the fridge and add as much crumb as you would like to the tops of the donuts.

Place in the oven on the middle rack and bake for about 5 minutes. Let the donuts cool in the pan for a few minutes before removing to a wire rack to cool completely.