Baked Cake Doughnuts

Because sometimes, you just have to have a doughnut.

You see, I do not live "in town." Not that driving to town on a doughnut run would be a huge deal, but I'm a very impatient person when I'm hungry. If I'm going to wait, I'd rather be doing something constructive, and I can whip up these doughnuts faster than I can get presentable (that means throwing on a pair of sweats with no holes, locating a baseball cap to cover up my bead head, and wiping the mascara out from under my eyes), driving to town, buying doughnuts (and whatever else I think I need because I have to somehow justify driving to town for more than just doughnuts), and getting back home just to realize that I forgot to make a pot of coffee...and now I have cold doughnuts. So, a country girl has to do what she has to do!

Here's my recipe for doughnuts:

Baked Doughnuts:

2 cups flour

3/4 cup sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1/4 teaspoon nutmeg

1 teaspoon salt

3/4 cup "sour" milk*

2 eggs

1 teaspoon vanilla

2 Tablespoons melted shortening

(I use butter flavor Crisco...I think the butter flavor is essential so if you don't have it, use margarine or butter.)

*to make "sour milk," simply add a teaspoon of vinegar to your milk, stir, and let it sit for about ten minutes.

Preheat the oven to 400*F.

Combine the flour, sugar, baking powder, nutmeg, and salt in a medium mixing bowl. In another bowl, mix the sour milk, eggs, vanilla, and melted shortening. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until just combined. Spray a doughnut pan (or two depending on the size of your doughnuts) and fill the cavities 3/4 full with the batter. Bake 8 to 10 minutes.

When done, pop doughnuts out of the pans and then dunk each in butter, and roll in the cinnamon/sugar mixture.

For topping:

1/2 cup melted butter

3/4 cup sugar

1/4 cup brown sugar
1 Tablespoon cinnamon

The topping is not an exact science, you could glaze them if you like, but the cinnamon/sugar is a real pleaser. Also, I have some fancy doughnut pans (and this recipe makes 9 regular sized doughnuts), but you could easily make these in muffin tins. Just fill the cups half full, and you will get smaller "doughnuts" but you will have more portions. Just remember to adjust cooking time depending on your pan.

Enjoy!