Baked Cake Donuts with Chocolate Glaze

I bought a donut pan a while ago, like a year ago, with the intention of waking up many a Sunday morning and baking fresh donuts for breakfast...even though there's a little local bakery just up the block from my house. Yeah, well, that picture-perfect, Martha Stewart Sunday morning never happened...until recently. I finally made donuts for Easter brunch.

They were much easier than I expected...no harder than baking cupcakes, really. And now I have all these ideas for different donut flavors. I am particularly excited to try bacon donuts (add finely-chopped cooked bacon to the batter) with a maple glaze.

Wait. I know what you're thinking. Baked donuts? Yes, fried dough is so much better than baked. But, you see, I've always been partial to the cake donut. A vanilla cake donut with chocolate icing is always my first pick, followed closely by an old-fashioned fried sour cream donut. Long John's and jelly donuts? Nah, you can have those. Though, I'll take a custard-filled donut any day. In a pinch, I'll settle for the standard glazed.

Anyway, the recipe I used a few weeks ago gave me donuts that were a bit too dense. So, today I tried a recipe I found on Kitchen Heals Soul, which I liked much better. They were light & fluffy inside, and crispy outside.

Yeah, that's right...I baked donuts on a random Sunday for no particular reason. And I ate all 6 myself.

Baked Cake Donuts with Chocolate Glaze 

makes 6 donuts

For the donuts:

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
Pinch of nutmeg
1/2 cup full-fat sour cream
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup vegetable oil
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 large egg

• Preheat the oven to 350°F. 
• Prepare a donut pan by greasing it with non-stick spray or some vegetable oil. Place on a rimmed baking sheet and set them aside for later.
• In a small bowl, whisk together the flour, baking soda, salt, & a pinch of nutmeg. Set the dry ingredients aside.
• In a medium bowl, whisk together the sour cream, granulated sugar, vegetable oil, vanilla extract, & the egg. Switch to a spatula and stir in the dry ingredients.
• Fill a pastry bag (without a tip) with the batter and pipe it evenly into the donut pan. The batter should reach about half way up the inside of each indentation.
• Bake the doughnuts for 12-16 minutes or until the top edges begin to turn golden brown.
• Remove the rimmed baking sheet from the oven and let the donuts cool for about 5 minutes before removing them from the pan. Let cool on a wire rack.
• When completely cool, dip the top of each donut into the chocolate glaze. Decorate with sprinkles, if you're fancy.

For the chocolate glaze (recipe from Joy the Baker):

1 1/2 cups powdered sugar

4 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

3 tablespoons milk 

2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract.

• In a medium bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar & cocoa powder.  
• Slowly stir in the milk & vanilla extract.  Whisk until silky and smooth.  You may need a touch more milk to make this a dippable glaze.
• Dip donuts in chocolate glaze and let rest to harden slightly.