It’s not even Easter yet and I’m feeling a little inundated with chocolate. Shock horror: I’m not a big chocolate eater. I mean, I like it (don’t get me wrong), but I could often take or leave it. I think I might eat chocolate once every few weeks…perhaps fewer. We actually have a bilby sitting in our fridge door from last Easter. Unopened. Foil intact. Yep. So, after the egg hunt at kinder this week (and a very chocolate faced Harriet), I was about ready for a sweet Easter treat that didn’t involve chocolate. Does that even exist? Glad you asked. Enter: doughnuts…
I picked up a doughnut (and yes it’s DOUGHNUT, not ‘donut’) baking tray on clearance awhile ago, so thought I’d give them a crack. This was loosely related to #emmas2018 goal of trying new things in the kitchen. Yes, I bake fairly often, nothing new or challenging there. But never doughnuts, and I wanted to tackle my fear of a piping bag head on. Fear is probably the wrong word, I just found the whole exercise of using a piping bag so tedious so I’d never do it, skip over recipes that called for piping. Not in 2018 though – Emma is picking up the piping bag. Look out! And yes these probably have way more, or equal amounts, of sugar than chocolate, but that wasn’t the goal. I actually planned to try and do these while the girls were asleep at night, but thought I’d go rogue and let Eleanor help decorate – which was fine until I realised Daddy had taken some un-decorated doughnuts with him to work so I had limited resources to work with – the pressure! I was pleasantly surprised with Eleanor’s efforts though, expertly placed eggs ‘juuuuust so’ on our green ‘paddock’ doughnuts. And soft swirls through the icing so we didn’t end up with a muddy mess. Thatta girl.
Marble Effect Doughnuts for Easter
Ingredients
Baked Doughnuts
100 grams caster sugar
75 grams butter
280 grams (1.5 cups) plain flour
2 1/4 tsps baking powder
1 egg
1/4 tsp salt
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/4 tsp cinnamon
125g buttermilk (or regular milk with a tablespoon of white vinegar)
Doughnut Icing
50g butter, melted
1.5 cups icing sugar
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/8 tsp salt
3 tbsps milk
1/2 cup dessicated coconut
Food colouring (green for the ‘paddock’ doughnuts, 2-3 colours to create a ‘marble’ doughnut)
Pastel eggs, to decorate
Method
Grease your doughnut tray and preheat the oven to 170 degrees Celsius. Cream the butter and sugar together until pale, light and fluffy. Stir in the egg, then the rest of the dry ingredients until combined. Pour in the buttermilk (or regular milk and vinegar) and mix, the mix will be fairly stiff/thick. Fill a piping bag with the mix (I find a rubber spatula the easiest method) and pipe the mixture into doughnut rings – I didn’t use a tip at all as you want it to come out in a fairly thick ‘pipe’. Don’t fill the doughnut rings too much or your doughnuts will rise and encase your hole! I had this problem with a few. Bake at 170 degrees for 12-15 minutes. Allow to cool in the pan before turning out.
For the icing, combine the melted butter with the icing sugar, vanilla and salt. Using a whisk, stir well to combine. Add in 2 tablespoons of the milk and continue whisking. Add the extra tablespoon of milk if it’s needed to thin the icing out. I find a thicker icing better so it’s not so drippy! In a seperate bowl, combine your desiccated coconut with a few drops of green food colouring. Stir well with a fork to create ‘grass’. Carefully dip your doughnuts in the icing mixture, then the bowl of green desiccated coconut, sit on a wire rack to dry. Dip a few pastel eggs in the icing mixture and ‘glue’ onto the doughnuts. For a marble effect, using a toothpick swirl a few drops of food colouring through the icing mixture (I dip this after I’d done the green grass doughnuts). Create a nice swirled pattern with your 2-3 colours, then dip a doughnut in, twisting it slightly to try and get the marble pattern. You don’t want to mix your colours up too much or it will become a muddy mess!
This was my first attempt at marble icing, but I think I could definitely perfect it! Always room for improvement. And those very Pinterest-worthy ‘galaxy glaze’ cakes are pretty aspirational stuff *insert thinking face* But these doughnuts are a great Easter baking session with the children, as I said I was surprised at how well Eleanor did, so her age (three years) or older would love it. Plus, she most definitely ate more of those pastel eggs than I think she did while I was icing doughnuts…
Happy Easter, I hope it’s spent relaxing with family, hunting eggs, decorating doughnuts or eating your weight in hot cross buns. Or bilby’s, whatever floats your (chocolate) boat.
P.S. For another sweet Easter treat, try my ‘Hot Cross Pudding’ from last year…
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