I pinned recipe after recipe of baked donuts on Pinterest before I finally decided I needed to give it a try, and now I'm just sad it took me this long! I ended up piecing together a few recipes to make my own, so here it is...
Ingredients ≫≫
1 1/3 cups warm milk (I used coconut)
1 packet active dry yeast
2 tablespoons melted coconut oil
2/3 cup organic brown sugar
2 eggs
5 cups whole wheat flour
A shake or two of cinnamon
1 teaspoon sea salt
Place 1/3 cup of the warm milk (not too hot or it will kill the yeast) in the bowl of an electric mixer. Stir in the yeast and set aside for about five minutes. Stir the butter and sugar into the remaining cup of warm milk and then add it to the yeast mixture.
With a fork, beat in the eggs, flour, nutmeg, and salt until the flour is incorporated. Place the dough hook attachment of your mixer and beat the dough for a few minutes at medium speed. Place your dough on a floured counter-top, knead a few times (the dough should be a tiny bit sticky), and shape into a ball.
Transfer the dough to a bowl oiled with a bit of coconut oil, cover, put in a warm place (I put mine on the warm oven), and let rise for an hour or until the dough has just about doubled in size.
Punch down the dough (great way to get out any anger/frustrations in life) and roll it out about 1/2 inch thick. Use whatever you can for a doughnut cutter, I used a beer glass that had a wide rim and then a recycled bottle with a small mouth for the holes. Place your doughnuts on a parchment-lined baking sheet and cut out the inner circles. I rolled my circles into their owl little doughnut holes.
If you need to rework the dough a bit, and roll it out again to get more doughnuts out of it, that's totally fine! I'll let you in on a little secret, the dough I had leftover that had been worked over too many times and didn't want to roll out...I filled it will a Tablespoon of peanut butter (I used sunflower seed butter, whatever you have on hand is fine), I didn't top these and ate them for breakfast. Deeeelicious.
Cover with a clean cloth and let rise for another 45 minutes.
Bake at 375 degrees about 8-10 minutes. While the doughnuts are baking, prepare your toppings.
Toppings ≫≫
1/2 cup of melted coconut oil, place in a bowl, to be used before each topping...
Cinnamon and Sugar ≫≫ 1/4 cup sugar (depends on how many doughnuts you want to top this way) mixed with about 2 Tablespoons cinnamon, all in a bowl of it's own.
Coconut ≫≫ unsweetened coconut in another bowl, again it depends how much you think you'll use, this is the healthiest of all the doughnuts, if you want a bit more sweetness to these you could sprinkle a touch of sugar to each one or get sweetened coconut.
Glazed ≫≫ this topping is a bit more complicated than the others, but so worth it...my favorite of the bunch. I found this glaze recipe in one of my Grandma's cookbooks I inherited, it (and the cake it goes with) had a post it note and some handwritten tips, so I knew it had to be good. The recipe makes a big batch of glaze (since it's supposed to go on a cake), but you can freeze whatever you don't use, or keep it in the fridge for a bit for other recipes. I had some leftover from some muffins I had made.
Mix in a saucepan 1/3 cup whole wheat flour, 1/8 tsp sea salt, and 1 cup sugar. Add 1 cup milk (I used coconut) and mix well. Cook over medium heat until thick, stirring constantly. Remove from heat, cool, add 3/4 stick unsalted butter and 1 tsp vanilla.
Remove the doughnuts from the oven and let cool for just a minute or two. Dip each one in the melted coconut oil and then dip in the topping of choice. For the glaze I spread it on without dipping in the oil first. Enjoy!