A Girl, a Snowstorm, and a Mountain of Vegan Doughnuts

I don't know about you, but an impending snowstorm sends me into burrowing mode and turns my kitchen into a warm, comfy laboratory for delicious experiments. As soon as I heard the weather predictions, my mind went to one thing: DOUGHNUTS.

After over a year of lusting at doughnut pans from afar, I finally ordered one. Now it seems like a whole new world of sweet concoctions is open to me now! So, without further ado, let me present to you the chocolate doughnut with chocolate glaze and coconut almond topping. 

Baked Chocolate Doughnuts (from Chloe Coscarelli's Chloe's Vegan Desserts)

(Makes 14-18 doughnuts)*

2 ½ cups all purpose flour

1 cup sugar

3 tablespoons unsweetened cocoa powder

2 teaspoons instant espresso powder

2 teaspoons baking soda

1 teaspoon salt

1 ¼ cup soy milk

¼ cup canola oil

¼ cup white vinegar

1 teaspoon vanilla

• Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Lightly grease your doughnut pan(s).
• In a large bowl, whisk together the dry ingredients: flour, sugar, cocoa, espresso powder, baking soda, and salt.
• In a separate bowl, whisk together the wet ingredients: soy milk, oil, vinegar, and vanilla.
• Pour wet mixture into the dry mixture and whisk until combined. Do not overmix. The batter will be sticky!
• Using a pastry bag (or a plastic bag with the tip cut), pipe the batter into the doughnut pan and bake for 10-12 minutes. Remove the pans from the oven and let sit 5 minutes before unmolding.

Chocolate Glaze

¼ cup semisweet chocolate chips (I used the mini chips from Enjoy Life)

2 tablespoons + 1 teaspoon soy milk

½ cup powdered sugar

• In a double broiler or microwave, melt chocolate chips and soy milk together.
• Whisk in powdered sugar until smooth.
• Let sit for 5-10 minutes and then assemble your treats!

You can really top these beauties with any number of delicacies (sprinkles, nuts, coconut, chocolate chips, crushed cookies, etc.) but I decided on one of my favorite flavor combinations: chocolate/coconut/almond. Yummmmmmm!

For the coconut/almond mixture I just pulsed a large handful of coconut with a large handful of raw almonds in the food processor to chop 'em all up.

To assemble, I poured the chocolate glaze into one bowl, the coconut/almond mixture into another, and some chocolate chips into another (because unfortunately, not everyone loves coconut. TRAGIC). Then you simply dip each doughnut into the glaze, twist it around, and bring it up as you twist so as to catch alllllll of the delicious glaze. Then dip into your desired topping and voila! Your own little masterpiece!

*This recipe yielded 18 doughnuts for me instead of 14, so I had to whip up a bit more of the chocolate glaze for the remaining doughnuts. For this mini batch of chocolate glaze I added a heaping tablespoon of homemade peanut butter and melted it all together for chocolatey peanut buttery goodness. What more could you want?!

These doughnuts are unbelievably delicious. The batter itself isn't incredibly sweet, so it makes it easier to pile on sweet toppings without going into a sugar coma. Baked doughnuts are often called out as being cupcakes in a different shape, but I noticed a real difference with this recipe. The texture and the flavors aren't identical to the average chocolate cupcake, and that's a really good thing in this case.

Obviously I'm obsessed with doughnuts now. Wouldn't you be too? Stay warm everyone!