Free Recipe: Fat Free (almost) Doughnuts

So, what's better than a beautiful, almost fat-free doughnut fresh from your oven?

Why, a whole batch of them of course!  Yum!

I've seen a little influx of home-made doughnut recipes in blog-land lately, and decided I just had to give them a go.  I didn't have a doughnut pan, so I initially tried a recipe I found online and just piped little circles onto a cookie tray.  But of course, as they cooked they just puffed and joined together into a cookie-shaped doughnut-y biscuit.  I needed a doughnut-pan!

I found this one in BigW, so they're pretty readily available and not too pricey either which is always nice.  And don't worry, it'll get a lot of use once you taste this yummy recipe.

So, lots of the recipes I found online claimed to be 'healthy' because the doughnuts are "baked, not fried".  That's partly true right ... then I found a few that claimed to be 'healthier' because they also used wholemeal (whole wheat) flour, or because they minimised the fat by using yoghurt.  Then, in my attempt to minimise my mother-guilt at putting a doughnut-looking item in the kid's lunch boxes for school and pre-school ("junk food" in lunch-boxes is very frowned-upon at our pre-school and school, but that's no fun, right!), I decided I'd tweak the recipes even more, and managed to achieve super-yummy doughnuts, that look just as yummy as they taste, and have pretty much no fat (except the fat found in a couple of eggs).  Now, I'm not suggesting these are a health food, they do have some sugar (though I've minimised that as much as possible) and the icing is certainly sugar-laden (they are also yummy un-iced if you want to reduce sugar there), but it does have to be a better option that a regular doughnut, and most importantly, the kids love them (and I've eaten my fair share as well ... great with a cuppa after a long day ... just sayin'!)

And here's my recipe (this makes 24 doughnuts using my pan, which are a mini-doughnut).  It's pretty quick, doesn't require any electric mixers so can be cooked in the evening while the kiddies are in bed, without waking anyone up ... well, when else is there time to bake anyway?  But it's a great one for the kids to help with too if your kids love baking like mine do.

Ingredients:
- 1 cup plain (all-pupose) flour
- 1 cup plan (all-purpose) wholemeal flour
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- a pinch of salt
- 1/4 cup caster sugar
- 1/4 cup brown sugar
- 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 120g fat-free greek yoghurt
- 2 eggs
- 3/4 cup skim (0% fat) milk
- dash of vanilla essence/extract

Icing:

Pink - 1 cup icing sugar / icing mixture

        - 1 tablespoon (approx) tap water

        - 2-3 drops pink food colouring

Chocolate - 1 cup icing sugar

                 - 1 tablespoon cocoa powder

                 - 1 tablespoon (approx) tap water

Equipment Required:
- 2 large bowls
- wooden spoon
- whisk
- measuring cups/spoons
- doughnut pan
- 1 medium-sized clip-lock bag

Method:

1.  Into a bowl sift the flours, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.  Ohhhh, it smells like doughnuts already!

2.  In another bowl, mix the eggs, caster sugar, brown sugar and vanilla until combined, then add the yoghurt and and whisk thoroughly until the sugars are dissolved (dip a finger in the mixture, then rub the mixture between your fingers.  If you can't feel any grainy sugar particles, you're good to go).

3. Add the milk and stir to combine.

4.  Carefully pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, then mix until combined.  Try to beat out any lumps using your wooden spoon if there are any.

5.  Open your clip-lock bag.  We'll be using this as a piping bag, so to fill it I like to insert the bag into a coffee mug, and fold the edges back.  It keeps it open while your hands are busy scooping the mixture in (Daddy came up with this tip whilst making Macarons once ... clever Daddy!).  Scoop the mixture into your clip-lock bag, then close the top securely, squeezing out any air at the top as you close it.

6.  Choose a bottom corner,  and cut it off, approximately 1cm (3/8") from the tip of the corner.

7.  Grab your tin.  Now, if you're worried your doughnuts will stick you can spray the tin with some spray oil, but mine haven't been sticking so far and leaving the spray-oil out is another way to reduce the fat content.  I'll leave that up to you!!  Now simply pipe a little ring of mixture into each doughnut shape.  Try not to get too excited and add too much mixture, because they do rise a lot, and you don't want your doughnut holes to fill in.

8.  Put in a moderate oven (about 180 degrees celcius), and bake for approximately 15 minutes, until they're golden.  Remove them from the pan immediately to cool.  Now, they're amazing straight from the oven like this .... or so I'm told ... nope can't get away with that one ... I ate that one in the front ... it was good!!!

9.  Now for the icing (oh, and you need to let these babies cool completely before icing them, or it just drips off!)  Decide on pink or chocolate.  Sift the icing sugar (and cocoa if you're making chocolate) into a bowl.  Add 1 tablespoon of water and mix well.  Then continue mixing and adding water no more than a teaspoon at a time until to you have a consistency that is thick but runny.  If you're making pink, add the colouring and mix in well.

10.  Then just spread the icing onto your doughnuts or if your pink is runny enough you might be able to dip them into the icing.  If you like, you can then dip one side straight into some sprinkles or nuts (or if you don't care about the fat content maybe even some chocolate shavings or something).  Let your imagination run wild.  Oh, and the kids love this bit too.

And there you go ... a guilt-free almost fat-free doughnut that's super yummy.  They'd be great for the kids to take to school / pre-school instead of cupcakes for their birthday, and even (if you're living on the edge like me!) in the kid's lunch boxes for a not-too-unhealthy-but-looks-like-junkfood treat!