June 6, 2014 is National Donut Day, a holiday instituted by the Salvation Army: you can find the history HERE, and some interesting facts HERE. I'm going to be getting up early on the 6th to make fresh fried cake donuts for the brethren, but I decided to do a little gluten free baking as well.
I've been experimenting with gluten free yellow cake mix recently, specifically the one from Hodgson Mill, so I wondered about GF cake donuts from a mix. Turns out there are several versions out there. The one I followed (using regular cake mix) is HERE, and I got good results by just subbing the GF mix in a comparable size. My GF tasters (three generations of ladies, starting with a picky four year old) found them to be deliciously moist and not at all grainy (like so many GF products). They especially liked the glaze I made with 2 cups of powdered sugar and five little servings of hazelnut flavored half and half--30 seconds in the microwave makes it liquid enough to use as a glaze.
We all agreed that they could have been baked longer than the recipe called for, as they were fully baked but fell apart easily. I also added a quarter teaspoon of nutmeg (a classic donut flavoring) to the dry ingredients before mixing in the wet.
I've been experimenting with gluten free yellow cake mix recently, specifically the one from Hodgson Mill, so I wondered about GF cake donuts from a mix. Turns out there are several versions out there. The one I followed (using regular cake mix) is HERE, and I got good results by just subbing the GF mix in a comparable size. My GF tasters (three generations of ladies, starting with a picky four year old) found them to be deliciously moist and not at all grainy (like so many GF products). They especially liked the glaze I made with 2 cups of powdered sugar and five little servings of hazelnut flavored half and half--30 seconds in the microwave makes it liquid enough to use as a glaze.
We all agreed that they could have been baked longer than the recipe called for, as they were fully baked but fell apart easily. I also added a quarter teaspoon of nutmeg (a classic donut flavoring) to the dry ingredients before mixing in the wet.
Since many people who go GF are concerned about healthy eating in general, I decided to bake the donuts instead of frying them. Wilton makes these donut pans---I got mine at Ace Hardware---or you can use one of those donut making machines which can often be found at garage sales and Goodwill for cheap. We all agreed that they could have been baked longer than the recipe called for, as they were done in the middle but fell apart easily. I also added a quarter teaspoon of nutmeg (a classic donut flavoring) to the dry ingredients before mixing in the wet.
I find that the donut making machines will give you more even browning, but you have to get the amount of batter just right. Don't let this manufacturer' photo fool you---they probably made about 4 dozen donuts to get 6 perfect ones for the shot. The recipe in the link above calls for buttering the pans, but some of the donuts really resisted removal from the pans, so I wonder if pan release spray would have done better. In any case, here's another use for GF cake mix---other recipes will be posted eventually, but I figured I needed to get this out for donut day!
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