Defeating the Purpose ~ Baked Donuts

Mm-hmm. I can see you smiling at this blog post title... I think you know where I'm going with this...

So here's the story.

I have, for probably 10 years now, wanted to make baked donuts. I LOVE donuts, but don't love the calorie count of the typical fried version. I also knew that baked donuts would be a wonderfully welcome site in the morning for my family.

I had seen a baked donut pan years ago, but didn't want to, at the time, spend $14 on myself and buy it. Ridiculous, I know. (I currently am in desperate need of a new book-light, and about three times now, I have gone into Borders, had it in my hands, and put it back because I didn't want to spend the $15 on myself...and yet I would do it in a second if it were for my kids or my honey ~ or my dogs, for that matter!!...I'm buying one today...I promise!)

So when we received the September 2009 issue of Vegetarian Times, and they had a spread on Irresistible Vegan Doughnuts, I caved.

I looked everywhere locally for the baked donut pan, but couldn't find it. Below is the one they use in VT mag.






BUT I was happy at least to find SOMETHING I could use. I bought a pan that was for making little bundt-cakes, and decided to use that. Ten bucks. Awesome.

I bought the ingredients for the donut recipes that had appealed to me, and I was all set.

Except for the fact that this shopping took place on a Friday. Afternoon. Late afternoon. I knew that by the time I got home, I wouldn't have the energy left to make donuts.

So what did I do? My craving for donuts needing to be satiated IMMEDIATELY, I bought a dozen Dunkin Donuts. Yup. Granted, we didn't EAT the entire dozen (and I only ate the pumpkin ones...MAN, they are GOOOOOOD!!), but we did eat our share (and when I say we, I mean me).

That was defeating the purpose #1.

Read on for defeating the purpose #2.

Saturday morning ~ Jake and Sam and I were home for the first Saturday in a LONG time (we spend our summer weekends at our un-plugged river cabin, and we have been traveling a lot lately). I had a deep desire for Saturday morning cartoons and donuts with my boys.

So out came the ingredients and the pan.

And the donuts just kept coming out of the oven.



And we ate and ate and ate them all day long.

Yup. Defeating the purpose of saving calories #2.

But they're SO delicious...

And here's the recipes that I used. Note: these recipes are vegan, and I just substituted non-vegan ingredients for their vegan ones.

Also, these are NOT going to be like the donuts from the donut shop. These are very different. They're not muffin-like, and they're not really donut-like...but they ARE unique and delicious.


First I made the French Toast Doughnuts...





These are DELICIOUS!! These are light and fluffy and oh so yum.




And then came the Apple Cider Doughnuts...

Feeling like we didn't make enough of the French Toast Doughnuts, I made a double batch of the Apple Cider ones...and they just kept COMING and COMING out of the oven!!



These are really delicious...they taste just like apple fritters, but are baked. When I made the batter according to the recipe (but using non-vegan ingredients), it was very thin. So I added more flour. And then for the sugar topping, I put them in a bowl of cinnamon sugar and kept flipping them over and over until they were completely immersed in the sugar.

They were very dense and very moist, and Sam proceeded to eat them for the next three days. Yup. They're that delicious!

EnJoy!!