These mini doughnuts are baked rather than fried, making them more doughnut-shaped cakes than real doughnuts. But they’re still delicious and better for you!
My sister gave me a mini doughnut pan and after some internet searches, I found this recipe at Tesco realfood.
Ingredients (original recipe says makes 12. I got 24 mini doughnuts from these quantities!)
- 75 g / 3 oz butter or margarine
- 115 g / 3.75 oz caster sugar
- 1 egg
- 120 ml / 3.75 fl oz milk
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 2 tsp baking powder
- 190 g / 6.5 oz plain flour
Method
My sister gave me her mini doughnut pan. Just to give you an idea of how “mini” the doughnuts are, here’s a picture of the tin with a teaspoon:
I think size is important because the original recipe said the mixture would make 12 doughnuts, but in my case it made 24! Not sure if the person who wrote the original recipe was making larger “mini” doughnuts?!
Pre-heat your oven to 160 degrees C (140 fan) / 320 degrees F / Gas Mark 2. Grease you mini doughnut tin. No matter how much you grease your tin, they’re likely to stick slightly… but we’ll get to that later!
In a large bowl or in your mixer bowl, beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Gradually add the egg, milk and vanilla, beating until the mixture is smooth. Finally, fold in the flour and baking powder.
The original recipe says to “spoon” this mixture into the tin. I didn’t see how I could do that without making a mess, so I piped the mixture in. I just cut the corner off a freezer bag and used that as a piping bag, no nozzle required.
I got the best results when only filling each of the doughnut holes to about half their depth. For example, the two in the lower left of the following picture are about right, the one on the far right came out a bit big.
The original recipe says to bake for 10 minutes. I had to bake them for 20 minutes for them to be golden brown and cooked through. It will depend on your oven, so just keep an eye on them. Here are the first batch of mini doughnuts fresh from the oven:
It can be quite tricky to get the mini doughnuts out of the pan. The best method is the run a sharp knife round the edge of each of them, leave them to cool for 5-10 minutes then try to gently lever them out. If you have a small spatula, that would be the best thing to use. I did have a few disasters – as shown in the following picture… it also shows how lovely and fluffy they are inside too though!
Turn out the baked mini doughnuts onto a wire rack to cool completely.
While your mini doughnuts are cooling you can mix the water icing. I used 150 g / 5 oz icing sugar and added a little water gradually until I got a thick white water icing. You shouldn’t need more than 4 tsp of water, but just go gradually because you don’t want the icing too runny or none of it will stay on your doughnuts.
Divide your icing into three bowls and add your chosen food colourings. I used purple, pink and yellow gel food colourings.
Use a teaspoon to spread a little icing onto each of the mini doughnuts and then sprinkle over your multicoloured sugar strands. I’ve included another teaspoon in the following picture to give you more of an idea of how small the doughnuts are:
Leave the icing to dry – it’ll take up to an hour. Then serve!
These are ideal for parties. Although, as they’re bite-sized, they might be a little too easy to eat!
Like doughnuts? Try these!
Giant doughnut cake with icing and sugar sprinkles
Art and Soul 
Oh gosh wow!!
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They are VERY nice. I’ve just finished icing another batch for the visitor we’re having tomorrow. A few “ugly” ones may have fallen into my mouth… 😉
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ooh lovely. hahaha- that’s too bad 😉
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All I want for Christmas now is a doughnut pan…
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If you can get them in silicone, I’d recommend that to make your life easier. Getting them out of the tin intact is really tricky. Lots of them come out broken, look ugly, and then I just have to eat them straight away… 😉
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I bet! And then you end up ruining the anti-burn layer of the tun as well while trying to scrape them out. Silicone it is 😉
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These look amazing! We need to do a Kickstarter fund for your bakery ASAP. I swear everything you make looks so delicious. 🙂
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Thank you! I’m still pinning my hopes on the lottery 🙂
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YUM! Now I’m craving donuts!
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They are very nice. I made another batch yesterday and half of them have gone already! 🙂
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THESE LOOK STUNNING! I love how much colours you’ve used to make them look like the classic iced doughnut. Me and doughnuts are best friends (right after chocolate, of course)!!! I NEED TO MAKE THESE!
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Thank you! 🙂 I was really pleased with how they turned out. And they’re surprisingly delicious for something so simple. As I say, the hardest bit is getting then out of the tin. It might be one where a silicone mould is better than a tin.
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The icing looks really really really sweet that I could almost taste how sweet it is just by looking. Gosh, they look so good gghhh
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They are very nice! And far too easy to eat 🙂
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They look so cute! I’ve never tried making doughnuts so I’m keeping this recipe at hand!
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I’d say they’re not proper doughnuts because they’re not fried, but they’re still delicious 🙂 And easy to make (apart from the getting them out of the tin part!)
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I don’t have a donut pan… 😦
What if you baked them in a circled pan & then piped jam inside to make jam donuts…? 🙂 I might test it out…
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I’m sure they’d taste good whatever shape they were baked in 🙂 And you can’t go wrong with adding a nice bit of jam to any recipe! I hope it goes well.
I only have the donut pan because my sister gave me her old one. It’s not something I’d usually have around and I doubt many people have one in the cupboard 🙂
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That sounds delicious 🙂
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Thank you! They were lovely 🙂 I’ve already made another batch since these ones!
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You’re welcome. Haha, it would be hard not to make another batch!
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They look so delicious Claire. I’m going to have to try this with Munch.
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Thank you 🙂 They were so good, and so popular, I’ve already made a second batch since this first attempt. I hope they turn out well for you and don’t stick to the tin!
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OMG! those are so cute. my sister is allergic to food colouring so do you know how to colour the icing naturally?
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I’ve had success getting a pink colour using pureed raspberries (you can put them in a blender then sieve them to get the juice, but I just pushed them through a sieve using a fork!). You’d need a tiny bit of raspberry juice to blend with the icing sugar and you get a lovely pink colour and great flavour!
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thank you soo much.my sister will really appreciate it too. 🙂
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