Baked Chocolate Mini Doughnuts

A couple weeks ago, I decided to join a gym near my office. I figured that it was well enough passed the busy resolution season and I really needed something to get me off the couch. Now three times a week, I pack my running shoes, gym clothes and a water bottle in my old university backpack and lug everything onto the subway during my morning commute. I find that the best motivation is having my workout gear under my desk seeing as how there is no excuse for not going immediately after work if I’ve already made the effort to bring everything with me.

Easing into the gym routine hasn’t been as hard as I thought it would be. Of course, I’m clearly knocking on wood here seeing as how I’m only a few weeks into this and my attention span for all things exercise can be pretty bad. A couple summers ago I took advantage of a hot yoga studio’s 30 days for $30 deal and ended up bailing the moment my month was up. I’ve also done pilates (lasted 2 months), exercise DVDs (still on my shelf – I refuse to get rid of them) and Zumba dance classes (just finishing now). At this rate, it will be interesting to see how long this gym thing works out.

I’m not sure how I started this post talking about exercising at the gym and taunting you all with pictures of chocolate doughnuts, so let me start this again. I recently discovered my little mini doughnut pan and realized that I had fallen into the exact trap I had predicting about owning single-purpose items. The last time I had even looked at this pan was in October when I made my Caramel Candy Apple Mini Doughnuts. Beautiful friendship? More like shifted to the bottom of a kitchen storage drawer. (I’m sorry little pan).

After a little wipe-down and a quick recipe of chocolate doughnuts, it was as if the whole forgetting incident was, well, forgotten. At least on my end. These doughnuts baked up fluffy and rich with chocolatey cocoa goodness and I substituted a bit of cake flour in place of some all-purpose flour to give the doughnuts a softer and more crumbly texture. A quick dusting of powdered icing sugar finishes it all off and then it’s easy to not feel bad once you’ve polished off a couple of them. Or a dozen, since the doughnuts are bite-sized and all.

These baked chocolate mini doughnuts are the second in a series of chocolate recipes made completely without dairy. This includes no butter/margarine, sour cream, yogurt or anything else with cow’s milk. This series was partly inspired by my husband’s lactose-intolerance and the challenge of creating fun, chocolate and Valentine’s Day recipes without the use of dairy.

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Yield: 48 mini doughnuts

Baked Chocolate Mini Doughnuts

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time: 40 minutes

Total Time: 55 minutes

Ingredients:

• 1 cup flour
• 3/4 cup cake flour
• 1/4 cup + 3 tbsp unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3/4 cup almond milk
• 1/2 cup + 2 tbsp brown sugar
• 3/4 cup applesauce
• Powdered icing sugar, for dusting

Directions:

1. Preheat your oven to 350*F and lightly coat your mini doughnuts pan with non-stick spray.
2. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, cake flour, cocoa powder, baking soda and salt. Set aside.
3. In a separate bowl, add vegetable oil, almond milk, brown sugar and applesauce. Add wet mixture to the flour mixture and stir with a wooden spoon until just combined.
4. Fill a small sandwich baggie with batter and cut off the corner. Pipe the batter into the mini doughnut pan, filling the wells about halfway full.
5. Bake for 4-6 minutes until the doughnuts spring back when lightly touched. Remove from the oven and let cool in the pan for 5 minutes before transferring to a wired rack to cool completely. Repeat process until there is no more batter.
6. Lightly dust with powdered icing sugar.

Recipe adapted from The Misfit Baker