thank goodness for small doughnut pans!

A couple of weeks ago, I mentioned making vanilla doughnuts with a vanilla glaze.  Then I made them again last week as a birthday treat for a colleague. So it's time for me to share the good news about these delicious treats with all of you.  It starts with this recipe from a creative and talented baker...a recipe that I liked the sound of so much that Wildcat Guy bought me a doughnut pan for Valentine's Day.

(Seriously...when a recipe has these ingredients, how could it go wrong)

Side note - I also really like the multiple recipes I'm accumulating for using buttermilk.  Too often, I buy a bottle - even a small bottle - of buttermilk for a recipe that only calls for half a cup...maybe a cup...and then the rest of it goes to waste.  But the more recipes I have that use it, the less likely I am to just pour the leftovers down the drain - and that's not only wi$e, but good, too. (Especially when one of those recipes is for these doughnuts!)

 

Per her suggestion, I decided to try piping the batter into the doughnut pan with a ziploc bag the first time I made them.  It was fun...it made me happy to play...but the spoon method (which I used on the second attempt) worked just as well.  Not to mention that, as often as I might end up making these, I would hate to waste all those ziploc bags!

Another suggestion that she offers is to use the batter left after filling the doughnut pan to make a couple of small muffins (so as not to have to wait for the first batch to be finished).  Even that extra step was more than I was interested in, though, so I just filled the six doughnut spaces a little more and baked them a couple of minutes longer.

 (Once the doughnuts have baked, it's time to make the glaze)

The oh-so-simple, oh-so-heavenly glaze made from just three ingredients.  (For the liquid, I used milk.)  The first time I made these, I drizzled the glaze over the doughnuts with a spoon; the second time, I actually dipped them top-down in a shallow bowl.  Personally, I prefer the drizzling.  It's a little more fun, and I felt like I had less glaze leftover.  (Not that leftover glaze is a bad thing if you have a spoon handy to eat it up with.)

 (How can your mouth not water when you see one of these?)

These were so easy to make - and I really like that there's only one ingredient in this recipe that I don't always have on hand.  I definitely see these as something I could throw together on a Saturday morning as a treat - and a great substitute (or maybe even replacement) for the canned cinnamon rolls I often go to.  Because as tasty as those are, the idea of something that's less processed is always appealing, right?

 (This is also appealing.  To me, at least.)

One very simple way to know that my baking went well?  The lovely kiss I get after Wildcat Guy has a taste.  I don't think he will mind - at all - if I make these again and again and again.

But just in case you need a third party's opinion, I offer my colleague's comment when he returned to his office to find these birthday doughnuts at his desk on Friday: "Thanks so much for the birthday donuts!  You continue to be awesome!"

Please make these.  I can't vouch that they taste like Krispy Kremes (the taste didn't quite match for me), but I can vouch that they are delicious.

Where I am: home

What I'm reading: when God winks at you by SQuire Rushnell