Baked Red Velvet Doughnuts

Ingredients

Doughnuts:

1/2 cup buttermilk *
1/2 cup + 2 tsp canola oil or vegetable oil
1 egg
3/4 cup granulated sugar
1 1/2 tsp cocoa powder
1 Tbs red food coloring
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 tsp vinegar
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp baking soda
1 1/4 cups plain flour

Cream Cheese Frosting:

1 cup powdered sugar
30g cream cheese
1/2 tsp vanilla extract
1 splash milk or cream

Method

For the Red Velvet Doughnuts:

Preheat oven to 180 C. Lightly coat doughnut pans with baking spray.

In a large bowl, mix together plain flour, baking soda, salt, cocoa powder and sugar. Set aside.

In a medium bowl, whisk together the egg, buttermilk*, canola oil, vanilla, red food colouring and vinegar.

Slowly pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, whisking them together until all the clumps are gone. Batter will have a very heavy and wet texture. If desired, you can add more red food colouring at this stage to get a darker colour.

Using an icing bag (or a zip lock bag with the corner cut out), pipe the doughnut mix into the doughnut pan. You can also spoon the mix in, but it will be messier and harder to get an even fill. Fill the doughnut rings to about half full.

If using a large doughnut pan, bake for about 10-12 minutes. If using miniature sized, bake for about 5-7 minutes.

For the Vanilla Cream Cheese Frosting:

While the doughnuts bake, combine cream cheese, powdered sugar and vanilla in a small bowl.

Use a spatula to press the ingredients around until combined. Add a few splashes of milk to get the desired consistency.

Putting It All Together:

Let doughnuts cool in the pan for 10 minutes, then gently remove them (use a butter knife to help) and place on a wire rack to cool completely.

Using another icing (or zip lock) bag, decorate the doughnuts as you see fit. If you'd like to dip the doughnuts in the frosting, you may need to double the icing recipe and add up to 1/4 cup milk.

If using powdered sugar for decoration, do not decorate donuts until just before eating. Doughnuts are so moist that they will "absorb" the powdered sugar if left to sit.

Doughnuts (especially baked ones) tend to have a shelf life of 1-2 days, so eat them while they're still good!

Notes:

* If you don't have any buttermilk, you can make your own. Using a measuring cup, pour in either 1/2 Tbs of lemon juice or 1/2 Tbs of vinegar. Then pour milk in the measuring cup, going up to 1/2 cup. Let mixture sit for 5 minutes, then use as buttermilk in the recipe.

Credits: Chrisy

Photo Credits: Chrisy