Red Velvet Doughnuts

Donut Vs Doughnuts

So, is it doughnuts or donuts? Well the correct spelling is actually ‘doughnut’, with the dough referring to the balls of dough they are made from. These days, however, it’s common to see the simplified spelling ‘donut’.

What Makes Doughnuts Rise?

While traditional doughnuts use yeast as the raising agent, these super easy baked doughnuts are yeast free and rely just on baking powder to make them rise and get all fluffy.

Using baking powder makes them closer to a muffin in texture – tender and fluffy – as opposed to a chewier, more bread-like texture of a traditional doughnut.

Baked Vs Fried Donuts

While I love a good fried donut and I’d find it hard to pass up a krispy kreme, at home I don’t like deep frying a whole lot. I do from time to time, like I did with these Caramel Doughnuts with Brown Sugar Custard and they are indeed worth it, but for the most part, I just hate the smell of oil and the mess it can leave on my stove top.

These days I’m more likely to make these baked cake style doughnuts. Yeasted donuts can be baked a too and I’ll be recipe testing some next year but for now, I’m super happy with donuts in less than half an hour and I know you’ll love these too.

How To Make Baked Red Velvet Donuts

Right, you ready for this quick recipe?

1. Start by measuring your dry ingredients into a bowl then give them a whisk to mix them well.
2. Now add your wet ingredients to a well in the centre and give it all a mix just until you have a combined, smooth batter.
3. Transfer the batter to a piping bag, then grease a 6 hole muffin tray and pipe the batter into the rings. Then just bake them for 9 minutes.

The Cream Cheese Glaze

The cream cheese glaze is a dippable glaze, and it only uses 4 ingredients.

To Make Sure Your Donuts Are Soft & Fluffy

It’s always important to correctly measure ingredients for doughs and batters. Scooping a cup of flour will give a different result to spooning and levelling and will also depend on how fluffed up your ingredients are to start with.

For this reason, I always recommend weighing ingredients to make sure the ratios are right. Too much flour can turn a cake, muffin or donut dry very easily.  Plus you save on extra washing up by weighing.

A Few Bakers Tips

• I always weigh my dry ingredients (like flour and sugar) both for accuracy, so I know they’ll turn out perfect every time, and also because then I don’t have to wash a bunch of cup measures either.
• Don’t overmix – just mix the batter enough that everything is incorporated and there are no big lumps otherwise your donuts may turn out tough.
• I use disposable piping bags and there is no need to use a piping tip, just cut off the tip of the bag. You can use a stiff plastic bag, like a zip lock bag, and cut the corner off if you prefer.
• I use a 6 hole donut pan. Even though this recipe makes 7 donuts, I only use one pan. Just let the first 6 cool before rinsing and regreasing the pan, then piping in the last. If you prefer, you can use a large muffin tin then just cut holes in the centre of each.
• Ok, this recipe technically makes 7.5 donuts. I still bake that last ½ donut worth of batter then I crumble it up to use as decoration.
• If the glaze is too thick, just add a touch more milk (no more than a teaspoon at a time). If it is too thin, just add a little more sugar until it’s the right consistency. It should be quite thick but still dippable.
• Red gel food colouring – not equipment maybe, but the food colouring I use is the gel type by Americolor. Different types of food colouring will have different intensities, so if you aren’t using gel, start with a small amount and work up until you have a batter that is quite red.

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