There are some bakes that are simple to make and simply delicious. I count oven-baked doughnuts in this camp and when they’re made with gluten-free flour and not the deep-fried kind, you can almost feel virtuous eating them. I know they’re still a sweet treat but you have to treat yourself once in a while, right?
I am part of an amazing food community called the HOC (House Of Coce) Supper Club which is an inspiring community of bakers and cooks from all across the world. I’m incredibly lucky to have been featured in their magazine three times over the last year which is always so exciting. We chat daily and set ourselves food challenges and the latest one is a citrus challenge. I have completely fallen in love with blood oranges this season and absolutely adore the bright (natural) colour that it turns sticky icing and prettifies any cake or dessert. Or doughnut. And it tastes delicious too! I’m not quite sure what I’m going to do when I have to wait another year for them to come back! But it seemed only fitting that I showcase this beautiful fruit in a bake for the challenge.
So these doughnuts are the kind that you can whip up with a few store pantry ingredients. I invested in a couple of mini doughnut tins from KitchenAid a few years back and have never regretted it and is the mini doughnut tin. You can, of course, make them without the blood orange (add a 1/2 tsp of vanilla to the batter and then mix the icing sugar for the glaze with a little water instead of the juice) but I would highly recommend bringing out this recipe in the blood orange season.
These make the cutest sweet treat for an afternoon tea or birthday party and have such a beautiful flavour. It’s also so rewarding to find a natural food colouring that looks this pretty and tastes amazing!
mini blood orange doughnuts
makes 6 mini doughnuts
ingredients
- 110g gluten-free self raising flour
- pinch of salt
- 65g caster sugar
- 25g light brown sugar
- 1 medium egg
- 45g whole milk
- 40g buttermilk
- 15g butter, melted
- 1 blood orange, juice and zest
- 50g icing sugar, sifted
- edible rose petals or sprinkles
method
- Preheat the oven to 160 degrees (fan)
- Lightly grease your doughnut tin with baking spray
- Melt the butter and put to one side to cool a little
- Mix together the dry ingredients (flour, salt and sugars) in a bowl with the blood orange zest
- Mix together the wet ingredients in a jug
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and stir together until they’re just combined
- Place the batter into a piping bag and pipe the batter into the tin until it’s level with the top of the cavity (if you’re using regular self-raising flour, you would just need to pip it half-way as it rises more than the gluten-free kind)
- Bake for around 10-12 minutes until lightly golden on top (the underside will be darker)
- When they’re ready tip them out of the tin onto a cooling tray and you will want them the tin side up which has a more pronounced curve
- Allow them to cool
- If the gap in the middle has closed up at all, when they’ve cooled a little you can make the hole a little larger with a skewer or small knife
- Mix a couple of tablespoons of blood orange juice with the icing sugar in a small bowl until you get a smooth consistency - you want it to be able to drop for a spoon easily but firm enough to coat the back of it - you can keep adjusting the consistency by adding more icing sugar (to make it thicker) or more juice (to make it runnier)
- Dip the more rounded side of the doughnut into the glaze and rotate the doughnut slightly as you're dipping it so that the icing covers the whole of the top
- Place them on a cooling rack to set and add any decorations to the top before the icing sets