Quick and Easy Baked Cinnamon Sugar Doughnuts

About a year ago I noticed a growing trend of doughnut recipes everywhere on the internet. Cool! I thought. I didn't realize making doughnuts at home was so do-able. But seeing as doughnuts aren't the healthiest of things, and I was at that point in time trying to lead a more healthier lifestyle, I decided to not really 'look into' this trend. I mean doughnuts are basically sugary dough deep fried in oil - not exactly healthy! 

Then, last winter, during a quick trip to Michaels to buy some arts and crafts supplies, I happen to pass their baking aisle, where I noticed something pretty cool! A doughnut baking pan! I had never seen one before and all of a sudden I realized...aha! maybe all those doughnuts weren't fried. Maybe there were baked! And thats when it dawned on me. OH MY GAWD I NEED TO MAKE DOUGHNUTS. However, being in a hurry I decided to come back for the pan another time (I mean there were like ten of them so what were the chances of them selling out?) So I came back a week later to pick some up when I found out they had sold out! (I guess the chances of them selling out wasn't so far fetched after all huh?! :( ) I called two other stores in the city and none of them had any stock either! It ended up taking me a good 7-8 attempts before I was finally able to locate a pan and buy it.

^ The impossible pan to locate, which I then located on amazon *face palm*

By then anticipation had grown and I was super excited to make those darn doughnuts already! So I ended up using a recipe that came with the pans and they turned out.... *drum roll please*....pretty horribly. Yeah. It was kind of a bit of a let down. Well a big let down considering all the time it took to locate the darn pan in the first place! I figured, hey, maybe theres a *reason* doughnuts are fried and not baked - maybe the reason is they turn out pretty gross!

So I gave up and packed up my doughnut pan and put it away in storage. 

Then I stumbled across said pan about a week ago as I was looking for other things in storage, and I decided to give this baby one more chance before exiling it permanently into the land of unwanted things. I searched all over for a good recipe (you know, to give the poor pan a fighting chance) and gave it a shot. I found this cinnamon sugar doughnut recipe and hesitantly gave it a shot. 

And it was SOOO GOODDD. OH MY GAWDDDD. Its unbelievable delicious. Like melt in your mouth amazingly perfect delicious. Seriously. The doughnut pan had been redeemed. Turns out it wasn't the baking that made the doughnuts gross but the horrible recipe I used! So if you are looking for a pretty simple baked doughnut recipe that tastes amazing look no further! 

And if you guys know of any other good doughnut recipes please do let me know as I would love to try them! :)

Recipe Review: I loved this recipe (in case the above paragraph didn't convey that enough ;) ). Its a quick and easy doughnut recipe that you can make with ingredients in your pantry but is super good. Its seriously the best cinnamon sugar doughnut recipe ever! The original recipe only makes 6 so I altered the below recipe to make 12 because 6 is just totally not enough. My family literally inhaled these in about 20 seconds and they were done. So do yourself a favour and make 12. or 24. or 48. I ain't judgin' ;)

P.S. My photography skills are improving aren't they guys?? :D I'm super proud of how they turned out this time :)

Baked Cinnamon Sugar Doughnuts

Recipe from Kara

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 cup flour
• 4 Tbsp cornstarch
• 2/3 cup sugar
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp nutmeg
• 2/3 cup buttermilk *use homemade buttermilk if you like!*
• 2 egg
• 2 Tbsp melted butter
• 2 tsp vanilla
  
  For topping:
• 6 Tbsp melted butter
• 1 cup sugar + 2 tsp cinnamon (mixed together)

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 375°
2. Mix together all of the dry ingredients (flour, cornstarch, sugar, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and nutmeg) in a mixing bowl. Set aside.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together all the wet ingredients (buttermilk, egg, melted butter, and vanilla).
4. Slowly add the wet mixture to the dry mixture and stir until just combined. (Don't over stir)
5. Grease your doughnut pan really well and pour the batter in to the pan.
6. Bake at 375° for 11-12 minutes. Let the doughnuts cool for a few minutes in the pan, then gently remove and place on cooling racks.
7. Melt your butter for the topping. While still warm, brush all sides of each donut with melted butter, then dip in the cinnamon sugar mixture until well coated.

Super Soft Thumbprint Butter Cookies

OH. EM. GEE. 

YA GUYS. These cookies. They are to die for. Not only are they super soft and just *melt* in your mouth, they are super, duper, easy to make. Like I'm talking ONLY 5 ingredients! It's so easy and has ingredients that any basic pantry would have. This may lead you to think "well it can't be so good if it's so basic". But you would be wrong, friend. Very wrong. 

I like to make a batch of these to take to work around the holidays and they are always a great hit. Its a very simple cookie and appeals to most palettes, and you would be hard pressed to find someone who 'hates' soft melt in your mouth butter cookies. In fact they were so good my health conscious boss even asked for seconds!

These cookies are thrown together real quick but make a really nice, smooth, easy to work with dough. I used my kitchen aid mixer, but you can of course use a regular mixer. Its just a basic 'mix your butter with sugar, beat, then add the rest' kind of recipe. The result is a super delicious butter cookie that melts in your mouth. They are great both warm and cooled. They aren't too sweet so its a great 'base' cookie - the cookie itself is soft and melt-y, but you can add other treats to make it sweet such as jam, chocolate, and icing sugar.

Its a great Christmas cookie recipe, but honestly I would have them all year round. Its a great base so I plan on trying different recipes in the next little while to see how they come along. So if you are looking for a great quick and easy Christmas cookie look no further than these soft butter cookies. Ok. I think I might have accidentally over hyped these cookies, thus causing extremely high expectations that no cookie could live up to. Forget what I said. They are just 'meh' cookies. 'Meh' cookies that I highly suggest you make ;)

Soft Thumbprint Butter Cookies

Ingredients: 

• 1 cup softened salted butter (BE SURE to use butter - no margarine here please!)
• ½ cup icing sugar, plus a little more for dusting the cookies at the end
• 2 teaspoons vanilla
• ¼ teaspoon salt
• 2 cups flour
• ½ cup jam (any flavour but I usually use Strawberry or Raspberry)

1. Preheat oven to 325°F. Line a baking sheet with parchment paper. Be sure to do this because unlike other cookies made with a high butter base these cookies stick to the pan!

2. In a bowl (or your kitchen aid mixer with the paddle attachment), beat the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Add vanilla and salt. Switch to low and gently mix in flour, just until combined - you don't want to over mix!

3. Roll balls of dough into 1-inch balls (about 1 tablespoon each). Place dough balls on parchment lined baking sheets. Press down the center of each ball with your thumb (they are thumbprint cookies after all!). I have also used the back side of my teaspoon measuring spoon before too!

4. Fill centers with a teaspoonful of the jam of your choice. Bake 12-15 minutes, making sure to not over bake. The baking of these cookies is a bit special - when they are ready they wont look ready because they wont get golden brown on the tops. That's ok. We don't want them to! When it gets golden on the top it means its over baked and will result in a dry cookie. Instead, to check if the cookie are ready carefully check the undersides to see if they are golden. If the cookie lifts (it wont if its not baked) and is golden underneath you are good to go! Let them cool on the baking sheet, then transfer to cooling rack.

5. When cookies are completely cooled (otherwise it will melt into the cookies), dust with icing sugar. Cookies can be kept in a container for a few days (though they probably wont last that long!)

If you try the other flavours let me know how they turned out :)