Baked Browned Butter Doughnuts

Happy New Year to all my awesome readers and friends! I hope 2014 rocks your world in the best way possible! God bless y'all!

Here's a post to get things going in 2014. I've been wanting to buy a doughnut pan for the longest time and I finally got one - today, thanks to a sweet friend! I didn't waste any time. I got my hands on this pan 3.5 hours ago, and since then the doughnuts have been made, glazed, photographed and devoured. 

Honestly, I haven't always been the biggest fan of cake doughnuts. Give me the old fashioned deep fried rings of dough anytime! But I've realized that as long as I don't compare them to the real thing, these are awesome! I really, really enjoyed the flavor and texture of these doughnuts!

I followed the recipe given on the back of the cardboard packaging on my Wilton donut pan. I usually don't do recipes found on packaging, but this one sounded good! I halved the recipe and got six donuts. The recipe called for melted butter and I kinda, sorta, maybe forgot the pan on the stove for a couple of minutes, but fortunately caught it before it was completely incarcerated. So we got the accidental browned butter doughnuts!

Baked Browned Butter Cake Doughnuts 

Accidentally adapted from the cardboard box my Wilton doughnut pan came in.

Ingredients

125g (1 cup) all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking powder

1/8 tsp freshly grated nutmeg 

1/2 tsp salt

65g (about 1/3 cup) sugar 

1 egg

1/3 cup buttermilk

1/2 tsp vanilla 

2 1/2 tbsp browned butter 

Method 

1) Browned Butter: Put the butter into a small cold saucepan. On a stovetop, using the lowest heat setting, melt the butter, swirling or stirring it often. The butter will froth a lot. After a little while, the frothing will stop and the butter will start turning darker with brown bits floating about. Once the butter reaches this point, take it off the heat. It goes from browned to burnt in seconds! So don't take your eyes off the pan. You should be able to smell the nutty aroma of the brown butter but it shouldn't smell burnt. Set aside to cool. 

2) In a medium bowl, combine the flour, baking powder, salt, nutmeg and sugar. Stir well to combine. 

3) In a small bowl, combine the egg, buttermilk, vanilla and browned butter. 

4) Add the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and stir until just combined - like you would with a muffin. Don't over-mix. 

5) Spoon or pipe the batter into your doughnut tray and bake in an oven preheated to 180C/350F for 8-10 minutes or until the doughnuts are springy to the touch. 

6) Allow to cool for a few minutes in the pan and then transfer to the cooling rack. Glaze when cooled. 

The glaze we used was a simple cocoa glaze. I used about 1 cup of powdered sugar, 3-4 tbsp of cocoa powder and a few teaspoons of milk until I had a nice, smooth, dippable glaze. Add the milk a wee bit at a time. You don't want it too runny. It should have the consistency of melted chocolate.

To glaze, just dip the presentation side of the doughnuts into the bowl of glaze and place back onto the rack for the excess glaze to drip off, add sprinkles, if you're using them (why wouldn't you?!), and allow the glaze to set. I dipped the bottom side of the doughnuts because they were really even and smooth from the pan. 

Next up, I need to try a baked yeasted recipe! I hope you like this recipe! ;) Until next time...