Homemade Mini Donuts

About 4 years ago I bought my daughter an electric donut maker for Christmas. Then we never had the time, or the right ingredients, or the energy... or the inclination to use it. So it sat, in its box, gathering dust.

Tonight, for some unknown reason, I hankered for a warm cinnamon donut.

So after looking through a bakers dozen recipes for one that sounded simple enough for a first attempt, as well as having the required ingredients, we settle on one from the Australian site Wheel & Barrow. A really simple recipe that uses basics from your store-cupboard and it makes light, fluffy donuts.

Ingredients

• 225g plain flour
• 100g castor sugar
• 10g baking powder
• 125g melted butter
• 190ml milk
• 1 egg

Photograph from Wheel and Barrow

Method

Turn your donut maker on to heat while you prepare the ingredients. Sift the dry ingredients into a bowl. Whisk the milk, egg, and melted butter together briskly, before stirring into the dry ingredients. (Don't over mix it as the finished donut would be dense.)

Brush some oil onto the hot maker and add your mixture. The original recipe telly you to pipe the mixture into the rings but we just ladled it in - slightly less than full but experiment and see what works for you.

They need to be in the closed machine for a least 2 minutes. We gave the first batch 5 minutes to try and brown them but they were still quite anaemic and a bit chewy. So for the next batch I took them out after the 2 minutes and left them o the cooling rack. I heated some oil (about an inch) in the bottom of the pan and dropped a few in at a time. It takes just a few seconds for them to turn a beautiful golden brown, then turn for a few more seconds before shaking off the excess oil and sprinkle with cinnamon or vanilla sugar... or glaze them, or dunk them in chocolate or drizzle with caramel... the possibilities are endless.

I think we made roughly 30 ish donuts for about 30 - 50p - I've still to work it out properly and I really haven't considered what it costs for our chickens to produce an egg! A real treat, that's easy to make and at a fraction of the cost of buying them at from a stall, or even the supermarket!