Mini French Toast Doughnuts

I’ve been dying to try making doughnuts for a long time now, but anytime I saw a doughnut pan in a store, I always seemed to talk myself out of spending my money on something I knew I would very rarely actually use. Fortunately, my sister knows me well and bought me a doughnut pan for Christmas, and not just any old doughnut pan but a mini one! Mini baked goods are always ten times cuter than regular sized ones, so I was so excited to break in my new pan!

I had a lot of flavours to choose from when deciding what to make for my first ever doughnuts, but once I saw the idea of french toast doughnuts on Vegetarian Times, I was sold. Their recipe was vegan and I didn’t have a lot of those ingredients, so I decided to just take the idea of a cinnamon and nutmeg spiced batter with a maple glaze and cinnamon sugar coating, then use the recipe that came with my pan as a base to create my own version of (non-vegan) french toast doughnuts.

The end result was even better than I’d imagined! Not only did they taste amazing, but they were also ridiculously adorable! I was surprised at how easy they were to make too; the batter is just like a muffin or pancake batter where you mix the wet and dry ingredients then combine them (no mixer required), then they only take 8 minutes to bake, after which you immediately glaze and top them, so they’re ready pretty quickly. You could easily have a plate of them on the table on time for breakfast, but they’re good any time of the day! I found that they tasted best fresh out of the oven, but still enjoyed them later in the day and even the following day, after a quick zap in the microwave to soften them up a little.

I like to think these are also not that bad for you, especially compared to a lot of other baked goods like cookies and muffins, or even compared to typical fried doughnuts. Of course, their mini size makes it easy to lose count of how many you’ve eaten, so in the end it probably all balances out!

After the success of my first doughnuts, I can’t wait to try other flavours now! Stay tuned for hopefully many more mini doughnut recipes – and if you don’t have a pan, don’t make the same mistake I made and wait for someone else to buy one for you – go get one now!

Mini French Toast Doughnuts

Inspired by Vegetarian Times; Doughnut recipe adapted from my Fox Run mini doughnut pan

Makes 30-36 mini doughnuts

Ingredients:

For the Doughnuts:

2 cups all-purpose flour

3/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon salt

1-1/2 teaspoons cinnamon

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

3/4 cup milk

2 large eggs, lightly beaten

1 tablespoon melted unsalted butter

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

For the Glaze:

1 cup icing sugar

2 tablespoons milk

1-1/2 teaspoons maple extract

*You may wish to add pure maple syrup for a stronger maple flavour - taste and adjust as desired

For the Cinnamon Sugar:

1/4 cup sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon

Directions:

Preheat oven to 325°F. Spray a mini doughnut pan with non-stick cooking spray.

In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients for the doughnuts (flour, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg). In a medium bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients for the doughnuts (milk, eggs, melted butter, vanilla). Add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and stir together until just incorporated.

Spoon the mixture into the doughnut pan, filling each hole 2/3 of the way full. Bake for 8 minutes, or until tops spring back when lightly touched.

Meanwhile, stir together the ingredients for the maple glaze in a shallow dish. Mix together the cinnamon and sugar in a separate small bowl.

When doughnuts finish baking, remove from pan and transfer to a wire rack with a pan or parchment paper underneath to catch drippings when you glaze them. Dip each doughnut in the maple glaze to coat the top, then immediately sprinkle cinnamon sugar on top of the glaze before it hardens.

When pan cools, wipe clean with a cloth or paper towel and continue filling with batter and baking until batter is used up.

Doughnuts are best served fresh and warm but will keep for a day or two (you may want to quickly reheat them before eating).

I shared this link in Sweets for Saturday over at Sweet as Sugar Cookies.

Cinnamon Chip Coffee Cake

I hesitated to post this recipe because I know cinnamon chips aren’t available to everyone (including us Canadians), but this cake was just way too good not to share! I hope that by now, more grocery stores in the US are carrying cinnamon chips, but if not, you can always order them on Amazon (they’re worth it). I also hope that Canadian stores will start carrying these, but until then, I’ll have to keep driving to the States to get them (no I don’t drive all the way there just for cinnamon chips, but I do go shopping there once in a while and I always grab a bag of cinnamon chips when I do!) For those who are still stuck, I have seen cinnamon chips in bulk food stores before, so don’t give up hope!

This coffee cake is full of those delicious little cinnamon chips, and it’s also really dense, moist, and delicious! The original recipe name was Cinnamon Chip Applesauce Coffee Cake, but I removed the word ‘applesauce’ from my title because you really don’t taste it at all, I think it’s mainly there to add moisture to the cake. The recipe didn’t specify which kind of applesauce to use, so I guessed and bought unsweetened applesauce. Once I tasted the cake, it was very sweet already, so I was glad I used the unsweetened kind. It’s definitely sweet enough to serve as a dessert cake, but I also enjoyed it for breakfast (though next time if I plan on serving it only for breakfast, I might reduce the sugar a bit). I also left out the nuts because I was sending the cake to work with Ryan, and I always try to omit nuts when they’re not essential so that people with allergies aren’t left out. But I’m sure this would be delicious with the added crunch of some pecans so go ahead and add them in if you don’t need to worry about allergies!

This cake is so easy and quick to throw together. The hardest part is waiting for it to cool before removing it from the pan, because it smells so amazing – but it’s important to let it cool so that it will keep its shape when you invert it out of the pan. The cake is perfect on its own, but I decided to add a simple maple glaze just to dress it up a bit. However, you’re also supposed to wait for the cake to completely cool before adding a glaze, otherwise the glaze just kind of gets absorbed into the cake. I was in a hurry and so that’s exactly what happened to mine, but if you are a little more patient than me, it will look much better!

One more thing I wanted to add before I get to the recipe is that my twin sister Genevieve (from Vanilla & Spice) and I have decided to have a “Thanksgiving Week” on our blogs for the week leading up to Canadian Thanksgiving (which is next weekend already!) Every day next week, starting on Sunday and ending on Saturday, we will both be posting a different Thanksgiving recipe idea on our blogs. So be sure to come back on Sunday and follow along if you’re in need of some inspiration!

Cinnamon Chip Coffee Cake

Adapted from Hershey’s Kitchens

Ingredients:

1 cup butter, softened

1 cup granulated sugar

2 large eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

3/4 cup unsweetened applesauce

2 1/2 cups all-purpose flour

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 teaspoon salt

1-2/3 cups (10-oz. bag) Hershey’s Cinnamon Chips

1 cup chopped pecans (optional – I left them out)

Glaze ingredients (optional):

3/4 cup icing sugar

1 teaspoon maple extract

2 tablespoons milk

Directions:

Heat oven to 350°F and lightly grease a 12-cup bundt pan.

In a large bowl, beat together the butter and sugar with an electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Beat in eggs and vanilla. Mix in applesauce.

In a separate bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt. Gradually add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients, beating until well blended. Fold in cinnamon chips, and pecans if desired.

Pour the batter into the prepared bundt pan and bake for 45 to 50 minutes or until a wooden pick inserted in the thickest part comes out clean. Cool 15 minutes, then invert onto a wire rack and let cool completely.

If using a glaze, mix together the icing sugar, milk, and maple extract, and drizzle over cooled cake before slicing.