Chocolate glazed chocolate donuts

I have another double-header post coming up this weekend (assuming I don't get bored, distracted or just plain lazy about blogging), so I'll try to keep this one short. (By the way, I have been playing around with the layout of this blog, and made it just a tad wider to accommodate larger pictures. I hope they make you drool just a little bit more!)


One of the reasons I haven't baked (and consequently, blogged) as much this quarter is that my learning team hasn't been meeting as frequently as we did during Fall Quarter. I try not to bake for myself, because then I end up eating the whole batch myself, which isn't very good for me. However, last weekend, my section had a BBQ on Saturday, so I decided it was time to make some donuts... Baked ones, of course.


I found a recipe by searching on Pinterest for the most delicious looking baked chocolate donuts I could find, and eventually settled on a recipe from a blog called The Milkman's Wife. 


As an aside, have I mentioned that Pinterest is my new favorite way to both discover new recipes and keep track of things I want to try making? I've tried various recipe organization tools over the years, from old-fashioned paper print outs, to Google Docs to Springpad, but none of them really stuck. These other options were either too time consuming, too difficult to organize, or too far outside my daily routine to be efficient or effective. By contrast, I'm really loving Pinterest, because I can browse the Food & Drink section to get new ideas, but I can also pin recipes from across the web (using my handy dandy Google Chrome extension!), all to one board.


Okay, enough geeking out. Let's get baking already!


I'm going to be honest -- these baked donuts are not as dense as real cake donuts (which I love). They're closer to a cupcake in the shape of a donut. But they're still tasty, and they look delectable with a coat of shiny, smooth chocolate glaze. At first, I was disappointed that I didn't have time to get colored sprinkles to make these a bit more festive, but after I started glazing them, I decided that they looked pretty just with the glaze. What do you think?

By the way, this recipe is SUPER fast and easy -- another plus in my book! Here's the recipe, which I found on The Milkman's Wife.


INGREDIENTS
3/4 cup flour 
1/4 cup dutch-process cocoa 
1/2 cup sugar 
1 tablespoon baking powder 
1/4 teaspoon salt 
1 egg 
1/2 cup milk 
1 teaspoon vanilla 
4 tablespoons canola oil 
Colored or chocolate sprinkles (optional) 



1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips 
2 tablespoons butter 
1 tablespoon corn syrup 
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract 



DIRECTIONS
Preheat the oven to 450 degrees and coat a donut pan liberally with cooking spray. 
Stir together flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder and salt in a large bowl. Add the egg, vanilla, and milk and stir together for 1 minute. Add the oil and continue to whisk until just combined. 


Transfer the batter to a large measuring cup (or a bowl with a spout) for easy pouring. Fill each cavity in the pan 2/3 of the way full with batter. 


Bake for 7 to 9 minutes or until the donuts spring back when lightly touched. Cool completely before icing. 


While the donuts are baking, prepare the chocolate glaze. Combine the chocolate chips, butter, corn syrup and vanilla extract in a double boiler (or in a stainless steel or glass bowl over some simmering water). Stir until the chocolate is melted and everything is incorporated. Use immediately.