Baked Brown Butter Doughnuts with Chocolate

Since it was National Doughnut Day on Friday, June 6th, I saw so many recipes and blogs celebrating this annual day.  I grew up having Winchell's doughnuts as a special treat and a good cake doughnut is the BEST.  I'll occasionally treat myself to a doughnut (or two) every couple of months, but I had never ever considered making doughnuts myself... until I found baked doughnut recipes.  I am not a fan of frying much of anything, so these baked versions are close enough in taste to my old favorites ... without the oil fat or labor of frying them.

Beware though, once you see how easy these are to make, it could become a frequent craving to bake fresh doughnuts for breakfast most mornings or bring to work for a mid-week "pick-me-up" treat.

So, I bought a doughnut baking pan last week, as I begin my doughnut baking journey.  This is one of those unnecessary kitchen gadgets that I never thought I'd buy... but now I realize it is well worth it!

Following is my variation to Joy the Baker's recipe, with ingredients and directions at the bottom of this post.  Check out Joy the Baker's blog for some amazing baking tips on doughnuts and many other baked items.

First melt butter until brown and nutty aroma.  Set aside in a small dish to cool to room temperature.
Note: It's best to melt butter in stainless steel pan, as it's harder to monitor butter color turning brown in dark teflon pan.

Next mix all dry ingredients together in a separate medium size bowl.  Thoroughly mix and set aside.

 

In a separate smaller bowl, whisk all wet ingredients together until thoroughly mixed.  It's important to let brown butter cool to room temperature, or it will partially cook the egg.

 

Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and mix until all dry lumps are smoothed out.  Do not over mix the batter or it tends to dry out the doughnuts.  Using a small spoon, scoop the dough into the doughnut tray, filling each form to 3/4 full.  Don't fill too full, or the batter will rise and close up any hole.

 

While the bottoms are rounded from the mold, the tops are more flat.

Ice the flat side, so the chocolate glaze does not run off down the sides.

 

Top the chocolate icing with chopped peanuts.

  Let the icing set for a few minutes and you are ready to serve ..... or devour!

My husband approved this recipe, but we both vowed to not eat all six ourselves, which was hard to maintain my will power! National Doughnut Day is always the first Friday in June... so mark your calendar for next year.