These donuts may be the most festive – and delicious – you’ve ever eaten. Especially at this time of the year, there’s a hint of mint in all kinds of things. These chocolate cuties are baked, not fried, which means you taste the actual donut and not the oil from the deep fryer. Plus, the coating of creamy peppermint glaze adds the perfect amount of sweetness without creating a complete nutritional disaster.
I can tell you from experience that these donuts are perfect for breakfast, dessert, or just a snack … I’ve eaten them at every meal in the last 48 hours 🙂
If you don’t have a donut pan, you can use a muffin pan instead. I purchased a donut pan set a year or two ago and it came with a donut hole pan, a larger donut pan and a smaller donut pan. I can almost fill all three pans twice with the below recipe. The small donut pan is my favorite because they don’t fall apart during dunking and hold just the right amount of glaze. The large ones inevitably end up in pieces (fishing them out of the glaze is a hard job but someone’s got to do it) and the donut holes are cute but don’t have the surface area for the amount of glaze the small donuts do.
I discovered that the donut holes look a bit like truffles so if you wanted to use them as a dessert you most certainly could. They will add some variety to a classic cookie tray or even at a cookie exchange. Just be sure to let the glaze dry completely before putting them on a tray or in bags.
The chocolate donuts were adapted from this recipe from Shutterbean and the peppermint glaze was adapted from this recipe at Cooking Classy – and my deepest thanks for the inspiration provided by both of these recipes.
Ingredients
- For Donuts:
- 2 c flour
- 1/2 cup unsweetened dark cocoa powder
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 cup low fat buttermilk
- 1 cup brown sugar, packed
- 2 eggs
- 6 T butter, melted
- 1 tsp vanilla extract
- 1/2 cup milk chocolate chips
- For Glaze:
- 2 2/3 c confectioners sugar
- 4 T butter, melted
- a pinch of salt
- 1 T evaporated milk
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- 1/2 teaspoon peppermint extract
- 2 T (more or less) hot water depending on how thick you want the glaze; a little bit gives you wonderful flavor but the glaze is SO good you may want to make it thicker. You may also want to dunk the donuts twice.... I'm not judging.
Instructions
- Preheat oven to 325 degrees
- Spray donut pans thoroughly with nonstick cooking spray
- Combine first four ingredients in a large bowl, whisk to combine.
- Combine buttermilk through vanilla in a separate bowl; stir until thoroughly mixed.
- Add wet to dry ingredients, folding the mixtures gently until combined.
- Add chocolate chips.
- Put into a gallon (or two quart-sized) ziplock bags, snip off corner and squeeze into the pan. Fill each donut ring half full or less.
- Bake 10-12 minutes or until donuts' edges have pulled away from the pan.
- Remove from pan and let cool on wire rack; I glaze them after they've cooled about 10 minutes.
- Put foil or saran down on counter underneath a wire rack to catch the dripping glaze (so you can eat it once you're done glazing)
- To make glaze, place sugar in small bowl; add all wet ingredients and stir with whisk or fork until smooth.
- Dunk donuts top facing down into glaze, place glazed top up on wire rack.
- Sprinkle with your choice of colored sugar or sprinkles right away before glaze hardens.
Enjoy!
Comments are closed.