Strawberry Mini Donuts
These mini donuts are a great version of a regular donut. They are baked, not fried. I used 100% whole wheat flour. Reduced sugar and oil. But, no one even noticed. My family loved these!
Servings: 30 mini donuts
Ingredients
- 1 ½ cups whole wheat pastry flour You can use any whole wheat flour you choose, but I love the lower protein pastry flour for this.
- ½ cup all-purpose flour
- ¾ teaspoon baking soda
- ½ teaspoon salt
- ½ cup granulated sugar
- ⅓ cup neutral oil I used canola, but you can use oil of choice. You can also use melted butter,but these are much more tender with oil.
- 2 eggs
- ⅓ cup plain greek yogurt I used a nonfat plain Greek yogurt, you can always sub in sour cream if you prefer.
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- ¼ cup almond milk
- ⅔ cup strawberries, fine dice or pulse in the food processor like I did.
Cream Cheese Glaze
- 2 ounces cream cheese, softened I used a lowfat cream cheese
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- ⅓ cup finely ground freeze dried strawberries These are easy to find in most grocery stores with a good food selection.
- ½ teaspoon vanilla
- milk to consistency I am not putting an amount on here as this will depend on how thick you like your glaze.
- crushed freeze-dried strawberries for topping
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Prep your mini donut pans by spraying. The cavities are so small, that you can brush them with melted butter, but it is kind of a pain! Spraying them is so much easier. Set your 2 pans aside. If you have 3 pans, use them. I only have 2, so I used the excess batter I had for mini muffins. Set pans aside.
- Combine flour, baking soda, and salt in a small bowl and set aside.
- In another bowl combine the sugar and oil, mix. Add eggs, vanilla, Greek yogurt, and almond milk. Mix to combine. I like to mix this with a whisk, to ensure eggs are mixed well. Dry ingredients are next. At this point, I switch to a spatula to fold the rest in. You don't want to over-mix. Last is the strawberries. Again, fold to combine.
- You have a couple of choices for filling the donut cavities. You can spoon it in, this is pretty tricky, especially with mini-donut pans. Or you can pipe it in as I did. For me, this is so much more simple. I use a disposable bag, as I don't really like to wash them out. Fill the cavity just below the top. They will rise plenty.
- Place in the oven.
- Be mindful of them, they bake QUICKLY. Mine have taken anywhere from 6-9 minutes. With whole wheat baked goods, you want to pull them out before the donut has baked completely.
- Here is how I gauge them. I like to pull them out when the very inside is a touch underdone. You can tell, by lightly pressing the top of the donut. If it feels SLIGHTLY underbaked, you are good.
- Remove from the pan by inverting and lightly tapping on a cooling rack.
- Follow the instructions below for the glaze.
Cream Cheese Glaze
- While donuts are cooling, prep your glaze.
- Combine ingredients in a medium-sized bowl. Add about 2 tablespoons of milk to begin. Mix on high speed until ingredients are combined. I used a hand mixer here, but you can use a stand mixer or even mix by hand.
- you will add milk according to how thin or thick you want your glaze to be. I like mine pretty thick, so I think I added about ¼ cup milk altogether. If you want more or less, feel free to do it.
- Turn the donuts upside down and dip them into the glaze. Make sure and coat it well. Turn right side up and continue with the other donuts.
Notes
- You can always scoop in your batter, but I find it easiest to use Wilton disposable bags. Not an ad, I just have used them forever and trust them. Pipe them about ¾ the way full.
- You can easily use these in a regular size donut pan, but there is just something I love about the mini size!. These are the ones I use here.
- A tip I have for ensuring awesome whole wheat baked goods is to not over-bake. Every baked good will continue to bake even after it is removed from the heat source. This is called carry-over cooking. The residual heat in the food will continue to cook it after it is out. This is really important in whole wheat baked goods as the wheat absorbs more moisture.
- If you pull them from the oven when they are perfectly baked, they will continue to bake and dry out. To avoid this, I pull them out when they are SLIGHTLY under-baked. Let them sit in the pan for about 2-3 minutes then carefully remove.
- I love to use a strawberry cream cheese glaze for these donuts. Why cream cheese? I love how thick it makes the glaze and the flavor as well. Another secret is I use freeze-dried strawberries. They give the most beautiful color and flavor. Dip once or twice, depending on how thick you want the glaze.
- Sprinkling a touch of crushed freeze-dried strawberries is all you need to finish these mini donuts off. Simple, right. You can also use your favorite sprinkle if you prefer.