Baked Doughnuts

I knew I wanted to make doughnuts while I was home for Thanksgiving and had access to my parent’s kitchen and, maybe more importantly, my Mom’s stand mixer. I also needed to be sure I had enough people around to actually eat the doughnuts, and my family kindly obliged. I much prefer the lighter taste and texture of these to fried doughnuts, and they could almost be healthy…. ? Or not.

Baked Doughnuts

Original recipe here at 101Cookbooks

Don’t over bake these, if anything, under bake them a bit – they continue baking outside the oven for a few minutes. You want an interior that is moist and not dry. Also, be sure to cut big enough holes in the center of your doughnuts, too small and they will bake shut. Remember they rise when they’re baking.

Yields about 1 1/2-2 dozen medium donuts, and the equivalent number of doughnut holes

• 1 1/3 cups warm milk, 95 to 105 degrees (divided)
• 1 packet active dry yeast
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 eggs
• 5 cups all-purpose flour
• A pinch or two of nutmeg
• 1 teaspoon fine grain sea salt
• Various sizes of circular cookie cutters
• An electric (stand) mixer

• 1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
• 1 1/2 cups sugar
• 1 tablespoon cinnamon

Place 1/3 cup of the warm milk in the bowl of an electric mixer. Stir in the yeast and set aside for five minutes or so. Be sure your milk isn’t too hot or it will kill the yeast. Stir the butter and sugar in to the remaining cup of warm milk and add it to the yeast mixture. With a fork, stir in the eggs, flour, nutmeg, and salt – just until the flour is incorporated. With the dough hook attachment of a mixer beat the dough for a few minutes at medium speed.

If the dough is overly sticky, add flour a few tablespoons at a time. Too dry, add more milk a bit at a time. You want the dough to pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl and eventually become supple and smooth. Knead a few times and shape into a ball.

Transfer the dough to a buttered or oiled bowl, cover, and put in a warm place. Let rise for an hour or so until the dough has roughly doubled in size.

Punch down the dough and roll it out until ½ inch thick on a floured countertop.

Use a 2-3 inch cookie cutter to stamp out circles. Transfer the circles to a parchment-lined baking sheet and stamp out smaller inner circles using a smaller cutter. If you cut the inner holes any earlier, they become distorted when you attempt to move them. Cover with a clean cloth and let rise for another 45 minutes.

Bake in a 375 degree oven until the bottoms are just golden, 8-10 minutes – start checking around 8. While the doughnuts are baking, place the butter in a medium bowl. Place the sugar and cinnamon in a separate bowl.

Remove the doughnuts from the oven and let cool for a minute. Dip each one in the melted butter and quickly toss in the sugar bowl. These are meant to be eaten immediately, while still warm (they do not hold up well.) Eating them quickly was not a problem…