King Arthur Flour's Baked Doughnuts for National Doughnut Day

Here's a post that languished in draft format for a whole week. Please excuse its lack of timeliness - I'm running on about half brain power lately.

Last Friday was National Doughnut Day. Apparently, this is not just a frivolous excuse to eat doughnuts, or an ersatz holiday conjured up by Big Doughnut (Dunkin' or Krispy Kreme) to sell more dough. According to the Holiday Insights website, National Doughnut Day "honors the Salvation Army "Lassies" of WWI. It is also used as a fund raiser for needy causes of the Salvation Army."

To properly mark the occasion, we first picked up a doughnut at Dunkin' Donuts. It had pink icing and patriotic red, white and blue sprinkles, which is a strange combination, but it made my 4-year-old happy nonetheless.

I realize that the following statement will permanently mark me as a non-native New Englander, and maybe even get me thrown out of Connecticut, where you can't throw a rock without hitting at least one or two franchises, but...Dunkin' Donuts? They don't really do it for me. Sure, I'll grab a Boston Cream or glazed stick once in a blue moon. I do love their coffee, but because I grew up in a non-doughnut-worshipping culture (southern California, where Winchell's are few and far between), I'd rather spend my calories elsewhere.

So I have to ask myself why I purchased not one, but two doughnut pans (one standard, one mini) a few months back. Well, obviously, my subconscious was preparing me for National Doughnut Day!

We came home and made Baked Doughnuts from King Arthur Flour. They were incredibly quick and easy to throw together, and my daughter had a good time upping their flair quotient with white icing-in-a-can (ick) and green sprinkles ("because it's spring").

When I purchased my doughnut pans, I also bought a baked doughnut mix from King Arthur. Well, the scratch version is much cheaper and just as easy, and makes a tender, delicately spiced, not fried doughnut. If you don't want to spring for another specialty pan, you can use a mini bundt pan (as Tracey at Tracey's Culinary Adventures did) or even a muffin tin. But then they wouldn't be doughnuts, would they?

Baked Doughnuts from King Arthur Flour

* 1 cup Round Table Unbleached Pastry flour or 7/8 cup King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour (I used unbleached)

* 1/2 cup sugar

* 1 teaspoon baking powder

* 1/8 teaspoon nutmeg

* 1/4 teaspoon salt

* 1 teaspoon cinnamon

* 3 tablespoons dried buttermilk powder

* 2 large eggs

* 3 tablespoons vegetable oil

* 2 tablespoons water

Directions

1) Whisk together all of the dry ingredients in a medium-sized mixing bowl.

2) In a separate bowl, beat the eggs, oil and water (or buttermilk or yogurt) until foamy.

3) Pour the liquid ingredients all at once into the dry ingredients and stir just until combined.

4) Butter or grease the doughnut pan; non-stick pan spray works well here. Note: even though the pan is non-stick, since the doughnuts are low-fat they may stick unless you grease the pan first. Fill each doughnut form half full.

5) Bake the doughnuts in a preheated 375°F oven for 10 to 12 minutes. When done, they'll spring back when touched lightly, and will be quite brown on the top.

6) Remove the doughnuts from the oven, remove them from the pan, and allow them to cool on rack. Glaze with icing, or coat with cinnamon-sugar or any non-melting sugar.