"Donuts, I got Donuts"

If you're a Simpsons TV show fan, go ahead and say it with me: "Mmm...donuts." Or we can sing Chief Wiggum's donut song: "Donuts, I got donuts...."

Don't know what I'm talking about? D'oh! Oh well, just check out the awesome pictures and the recipe below for my first ever attempt at homemade donuts!  Finally, finally, another success!  I owe it all to shopping with my mom at Bed, Bath & Beyond where I swore I wasn't going to buy anything, until I saw it: a shiny, enticing, never-before-owned-by-me donut pan, complete with recipe ideas attached. I happen to absolutely without a doubt love donuts, and absolutely without a doubt never eat them because I don't eat fried foods anymore. Le sigh.

However, one of my favorite types of donuts used to be the glazed "cake" donut (pancakes, shortcakes, birthday cakes--do you see a pattern in my favorite treats?). And everyone knows cake is baked, not fried. (Yay, healthier already!). So I took the Wilton's recipe for standard Baked Cake Doughnuts that came with my new pan, and twisted it up with the one food item I'd been wanting to incorporate into my baked goods forever. The one item I knew could dress up a standard donut recipe and make it shine--or perhaps sizzle. Bacon.

Now these donuts did not turn out overwhelmingly bacon-y in taste (is that good or bad?) so I might have to experiment with adding just a little more bacon grease and bits next time. But the result was still fluffy, sweet, and so delicious.

Bacon Cake Donuts

Ingredients:


2 cups cake flour, sifted
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
1 and 2/3 Tablespoons melted butter
1/3 Tablespoon (1 teaspoon) bacon grease
1 teaspoon bacon bits (cooked bacon, chopped)

Directions:


1). Preheat the oven to 425 degrees a spray a donut pan with nonstick cooking spray (or, if you don't have a donut pan, I suppose you could use a muffin tin and see what happens!). In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, nutmeg and salt.

2). In a separate bowl, combine the brown sugar, buttermilk, eggs, melted butter and bacon grease. (The grease is easy enough to collect from bacon heated on the stove--I used about nine small pieces of precooked Trader Joe's Fully Cooked Uncured Bacon to get a teaspoon of grease, though). It helps if the butter and grease has cooled a little before adding them to the mixture--otherwise they'll curdle the eggs.

3). Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and beat gently until just combined. Bake approximately seven minutes, then remove from oven and let sit at least five minutes before removing from the pan carefully with a couple of toothpicks on the sides of the donuts to turn them out. Let cool slightly, then drizzle with icing or dip in frosting if so desired.

My intention was to create a "Maple-Bacon" breakfast kind of donut, actually, but I just couldn't get my frosting to taste or look quite right. So that's an experiment for another day. Rather than wait until I had a perfect maple syrup frosting recipe concocted before writing this post, I figured I'd best just get it up here and you can either use your favorite canned frosting, try out one of my previous recipes like eggnog frosting or just eat them plain (that's what I did!) with a side of coffee for dunkin'. Tasted perfect to me! You won't have to say "D'oh!" and "Nuts!" separately ever again. Mmm...donuts....