A 'Hole' Lotta Fun with Mini Donuts #BakingBloggers

This month, Sue of Palatable Pastime told the Baking Bloggers that for October: "Let's pop some batter into a pan and bake up one of Autumn's favorite breakfast treats. All forms of donuts- it just has to be baked rather than the fried type." Here's the #BakingBloggers virtual donut shop...

• A 'Hole' Lotta Fun with Mini Donuts by Culinary Adventures with Camilla
• Apple Cider Baked Doughnuts by Cookaholic Wife
• Baked Apple Cider Doughnuts by The Schizo Chef
• Baked Chocolate Spice Crumb Cake Donuts by Faith, Hope, Love, & Luck Survive Despite a Whiskered Accomplice
• Baked Cookies and Cream Doughnuts by Tara's Multicultural Table
• Baked Donut Recipe Without A Pan by Recipe Pocket
• Baked Donut Muffins by Sneha's Recipe
• Baked Glazed Lemon Donuts by Making Miracles
• Chocolate Donuts with Chocolate Chips by A Day in the Life on the Farm
• Double Chocolate Baked Donuts by Karen's Kitchen Stories
• Filled Donuts by Sid's Sea Palm Cooking
• German Chocolate Sauerkraut Donuts by Palatable Pastime

I am embarassed to say that I have had a mini donut cookbook - Mini Donuts: 100 Bite-Sized Donut Recipes to Sweeten Your "Hole" Day by Jessica Segarra* - and a mini donut pan that has been largely ignored. For. Years. This was the perfect time to dust if off! Before I get to my recipe for the day, I'm going to tell you a bit about this book. Bear with me!

On the Page

Jessica Segarra is the creator of The Novice Chef blog. She describes herself as "not an actual chef, since chefs go to school." She asserts, instead, that she is "a trial and error, self taught, sugar addict who wants to share all of her recipes through pictures and stories with the world." Me, too! 

Well, the 'trial and error' part and the 'not an actual chef' certainly apply. 'Sugar addict' I am not; give me a bag of chips any ol' day. The whole bag. But I am always game for some culinary adventures, so I used a gift certificate I had to acquire a donut baking pan. Much to my dismay, I selected the wrong sized pan. Ugh. Mine had larger hollows and would make small donuts versus minis. But a few tweets later - with Jessica -  I learned that I could use the pan I bought by simply extending the baking time. Sweet!

If I had to distill this cookbook into one word, it would be 'fun'...oodles and oodles of fun. Sugary, adorable fun.

Jessica's book is divided into eight chapters with 100 original recipes. "The Classics" include Buttermilk Mini Donuts, Maple-Glazed Mini Donuts, and even the festive Vanilla-Sprinkle Mini Donut. The two chocolate creations that caught my eye in the second chapter, "Chocolate x 2", were her Devil's Food Mini Donuts and the Chocolate-Bacon-Maple Mini Donuts. In "Fruity" the Clementine Cream Mini Donut recipe had me humming: oh, my darlin', oh, my darlin', oh, my darlin' Clementine!

Chapter 4, "Donuts of the Stars", was jam-packed with celebrity-inspired creations including 'The Elvis', a peanut butter and banana mini donut; 'The Curious George: Banana Cream Mini Donut'; and 'The Bugs Bunny', a carrot cake mini donut with a cinnamon-scented cream cheese frosting. The three chapters - "Bakery Special", "Candy-Aisle Donuts", and "For the Kid in You" - all made my teeth hurt just reading the recipes. But if you are, like Jessica, a self-proclaimed sugar addict. Have at it. My favorite chapter, bar none, was chapter 7: "Drinks to Donuts". No surprise there.

On the Plate

My strategy to select a few recipes to try completely backfired. I asked my usual taste-testers and, of the four adults and three kids I polled, no one picked the same donuts. So, I opted to do a choose-your-own-adventure style donut, using a single cake base and a single glaze, but providing a variety of toppings. With one batch, I was able to satisfy the family cravings for plain dark chocolate (Jake), Mexican hot chocolate (The Precise Kitchen Elf), Rocky Road (The Enthusiastic Kitchen Elf), and a chocolate + bacon (me).

Here's what we made...

The Chocolate Donut

slightly adapted from Mini Donuts' Dark Chocolate-Ganache Mini Donut recipe

Ingredients made 15 small donuts

• 1/3 C unsweetened cocoa powder
• 2 t baking powder
• 1 egg
• 1/2 C organic granulated sugar
• 3/4 C organic milk
• 2 T oil (I used canola)
• 2 T organic sour cream
• 1/2 t pure vanilla paste

Procedure

Whisk everything together in a mixing bowl. Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease the hollows of your baking dish. Fill the hollows three-quarters of the way up. Bake for 13 minutes. Let cool slightly then invert onto a wire cooling rack.

The Ganache

slightly adapted from Mini Donuts'  Dark Chocolate-Ganache Mini Donut recipe

Ingredients

• 3 oz dark chocolate, chipped
• 1/2 C organic heavy cream
• 2 T organic granulated sugar
• 1 T butter

Procedure

Place everything except for the cream in a mixing bowl. In a small saucepan, heat the cream until small bubbles form around the edge of the pan. Pour the cream into the mixing bowl, making sure that the chocolate is completely submerged. Let sit for 3 minutes. Whisk till smooth. Cool for at least 10 minutes before dipping your donuts. Place on a wire rack over parchment paper to catch any drips.

The Variations

Mexican Hot Chocolate
Dark Chocolate-Ganache Mini Donuts + Mini Marshmallows + Ground Cinnamon + Ground Ancho Chili Powder

Rocky Road
Dark Chocolate-Ganache Mini Donuts + Mini Marshmallows + Raw Pecan Pieces

Sweet and Salty Piggy
Dark Chocolate-Ganache Mini Donuts + Applewood Bacon Bits + Freshly Ground Sugar + Freshly Ground Sea Salt

Does this look like a 'hole' lotta fun? It was! What a fun, inspirational cookbook, chock-full of recipes. Almost too many recipes. But it just means that I'll have to make another batch soon...especially since I now know where that donut pan is! Looking forward to many more variations of the mini donut in the future.

*This blog currently has a partnership with Amazon.com in their affiliate program, which gives me a small percentage of sales if you buy a product through a link on my blog. It doesn't cost you anything more. If you are uncomfortable with this, feel free to go directly to Amazon.com and search for the item of your choice.

I am adding this to the #FoodieReads link-up.

Click to see what everyone else read in October 2019: here.