Baked Mini Lemon Doughnuts with Vanilla Glaze

Lots of studying to do and a new baking pan I haven't used. That's the perfect combination to get me into the kitchen when I'm stressed.

And so yesterday, I went to make a mini baked doughnuts. BAKED, yes, that's the key word! I love doughnuts but hate myself after eating one, because they're almost always deep fried. As if sugar and butter weren't enough, add oil to that and a whole lot of topping. Umm, no thank you. You might think my reaction is odd- considering I bake and am a food blogger.. but it's important to eat healthy most of the time so you can enjoy cakes guilt-free.

These are adorable and bite sized. Perfect for kids or as a snack with tea. Or coffee. Or just on its own, really.

I wanted to experiment with colouring the glazing and doing some more creative things but funny enough the glazing was not easy. I took a tea spoon and starting dripping the glaze all down the sides of the doughnut but I guess the doughnut itself was too tiny! I got a lot of excess glaze down on the bottom of the wire rack on the newspaper that I kept for easy cleanup.

But these are fairly simple to make and are a melt and mix batter.

Ingredients
1.5 cups cake flour
0.5 cups granulated sugar
1.5 teaspoons baking powder
0.75 teaspoon salt
0.5 teaspoon freshly grated lemon zest
0.5 cup buttermilk
1 egg, lightly beaten
1.5 tablespoons melted butter
1 cup icing sugar
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla essence
Chocolate sprinkles, optional

Ingredients
Preheat oven to 220C and lightly grease a 12 mould doughnut tray.
Sift the flour twice.
Add sugar, baking powder, salt, and lemon zest to flour. Stir to combine.
Add egg, melted butter, and buttermilk to flour mixture and lightly whisk to combine until just smooth.
Take a teaspoon and add the batter carefully to the insides of a doughnut mould.
Bake in preheated oven for 6 minutes until doughnuts spring back at touch.
Let them cool in the pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool.
Meanwhile, make the glaze by mixing together the icing sugar, milk, and vanilla essence in a bowl.
Once doughnuts are cool, drip the glazing over the sides. Quickly add the chocolate sprinkles as the glaze hardens fairly quickly.