Baked Mini Chocolate Cinnamon Donuts

Sorry for the radio-silence. Again. This winter has been absolutely crazy, with heavy storms, lots of snow, power outages and lots of other fun.  Then,  just for fun, blogger identified this blog as spam, pulling it off-line for a couple of days. So if you tried to visit my blog over the weekend and have trouble, I apologize for that, and I thank you for bearing with me as I sorted that situation out!

But no multi-day power outage can keep me from cooking! Okay, it did... for two days... but as soon as we were back up and running, I was baking up a storm!

And it's a good thing, too, because I was really looking forward to making this little treat.

My Secret Recipe Club assignment for this month was Jenny's Cookbook, a fun blog full of delicious foods and great inspiration.  I thought I would have trouble choosing what to make because everything looked so delicious, but I was actually able to choose rather quickly. Because, as luck would have it, I had a new pan I was hoping for the opportunity to try out.  Daddy gave me an absolutely adorable mini-donut pan for Christmas this year. So when I saw Jennifer's recipe for Baked Mini Chocolate Cinnamon Donuts, it was like it was meant to be.

And these were so fun both to make and to eat.

For starters, they're bursting with flavor. In addition to the chocolate and cinnamon in the title, there's also vanilla extract, which is used to dissolve instant coffee.

With, of course, that cocoa and cinnamon...

...which mix together to form a pretty thick cake batter.

(I made mine dairy free, using coconut oil instead of butter and coconut milk instead of milk, which I think made the batter a tiny bit thicker than normal, but not enough to matter.)

The best way to get this batter into the teeny, tiny sections of the donut pan is to pipe it in.

It's important not to overfill the sections - the donuts have the best shape if you fill each section between 1/2 and 2/3 the way up the center section.

The best part about the mini-donut-baking process, though, is how quickly it goes! The donuts are so little that they bake in six minutes!

I made a simple glaze for my donuts with confectioners' sugar, cocoa powder and coconut  milk. You can drizzle the glaze on them or...

...dip!

A few sprinkles...

...and you're ready for a teeny, tiny party!

Seriously, these were so cute, and super easy to just pop right in your mouth.  On top of that, they were also super delicious! Fun? Easy? Yummy? Can't beat that!


Baked Mini Chocolate Cinnamon Donuts
(from Jenny's Cookbook)

1/2 cup 2% milk (I used coconut milk)
1 tablespoon lemon juice (I used white vinegar)
1 teaspoon vanilla
1 teaspoon instant coffee
1 cup all purpose flour
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
2 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened (I used coconut oil)
1/2 cup sugar
1 large egg

Preheat oven to 350F and spray mini-donut pan with non-stick cooking spray.
Measure out your milk and add the lemon juice. Let it stand for about 10 minutes. If you have buttermilk, you can use it instead.
Dissolve coffee in vanilla and set it aside.
In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.
In another bowl (I used my stand mixer), beat together the butter and sugar for about a minute until it's well combined. Beat in the egg, milk and vanilla just until combined.
With mixer on low speed, add in flour mixtuer and mix until just combined.
Transfer the batter into a piping bag (or a zip-top bag with the tip cut off). Pipe the batter into each section of the pan about half way full. Be careful not to overfill each section or you will lose the donut shape as the batter rises and bakes.
Bake for about 6 minutes or until the doughnuts spring back at you when touched. Let them sit in the pan for a minute then transfer them to a wire rack to cool. You can use the tip of a knife to help you release them from the pan if you need to.

For the glaze:
The original recipe didn't give measurements, so I eyballed everything, but the basic recipe is to use confectioners' sugar and cocoa powder in approximately a 4:1 ratio (1/4 the amount of cocoa powder as confectioners' sugar), mix them together, and then slowly add milk (I used coconut milk) until you have the consistency you want. It does not take a lot of milk, so make sure to add slowly and mix thoroughly.
Then just dip the top of each donut into the glaze mixture, or you can brush it on top.
You can add sprinkles or any other decoration you want while the glaze is still wet.

Enjoy!