Red Velvet Baked Donuts!

Donuts are amazingly tasty, however the part that I always dislike in baking donuts is the frying in the oil part! It’s just that i’m SO clumsy, always end up getting some sort of oil splatter on me. However, I do love eating donuts.. so I decided to bake them! Then I decided to turn into the flavour that one of my friends ABSOLUTELY loves! RED VELVET! honestly red velvet is yummy but its the cream cheese frosting on top that i absolutely adore! And on these baked red velvet donuts, its super yummy!!

Here’s how you bake them!

INGREDIENTS:

Red Velvet Donuts:

3/4 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp cocoa powder
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 cup flour
1/2 cup buttermilk * (homemade buttermilk – 1/2 cup milk with 2 tbsp lemon juice)
1/2 Cup vegetable oil
1 egg
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp vinegar
1 tbsp red food coloring

Cream Cheese Frosting:

120 g icing sugar
28.35 g cream cheese
0.5 tsp vanilla extract
1 splash milk or cream

METHOD:

Preheat oven to 175C. Generously coat 2 donut pans with butter and set aside.
In a large bowl, shift together all-purpose flour, baking soda, salt, cocoa powder, and sugar. Set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg, buttermilk (or your homemade version), vegetable oil, vanilla, red food colouring, and vinegar.
Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, whisking them together until all the clumps are gone. Be careful not to over mix – stop mixing as soon as there are no longer any visible clumps. Batter will have a very heavy and wet texture. If desired, you can add more red food colouring at this stage to get a darker colour.
Using a piping bag, pipe the donut mix into the donut pan. Fill the donut rings to about 1/2 full.
If using large donut pans, bake for about 10-12 minutes. If using a mini donut pans, bake for about 5-7 minutes.

FOR THE VANILLA CREAM CHEESE FROSTING –

While the donuts bake, combine cream cheese, powdered sugar, and vanilla in a small bowl.
Use a spatula to press the ingredients around until combined. Add a few splashes of milk to get the desired consistency. Icing should be smooth but not too drippy.

PUTTING IT ALL TOGETHER –

Let donuts cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then gently remove them (can use a spatula or butter knife to help) and place them on a wire rack to cool completely.
Using another piping bag, decorate the donuts as you see fit. If you’d like to dip the tops of the donuts in the frosting, you may need to double the icing recipe and add up to 1/4 cup milk. If using powdered sugar for decoration, do not decorate donuts until just before eating. Donuts are so moist that they will “absorb” the powdered sugar if left to sit with the powdered sugar.
Donuts (especially baked ones) tend to have a shelf life of 1-2 days, so be sure to eat them while they’re still good!