Quick Cinnamon Cake Doughnuts are super easy to pull off. Taking only 20-30 minutes from start to finish, these Quick Cinnamon Cake Doughnuts are the perfect morning treat!
I am here today to shatter the illusion that making doughnuts is hard. I’m not sure where this idea came from, but if you ask the average home cook to make a batch of doughnuts they may look at you like Julia Child just asked them to debone a whole chicken. Don’t fall into that trap. Doughnuts are a cinch. And these Quick Cinnamon Cake Doughnuts are the easiest.
There are two different types of doughnuts ; there are the yeast doughnuts (think Krispy Kreme) and there are the cake style doughnuts (think those addictive little powdered doughnuts you get at the gas station). Both are relatively easy to put together, but one takes much less collective time than the other. That is the cake style doughnuts .
Cake doughnuts are a cousin to the biscuit. They both contain flour, fat and milk but the doughnut goes a little further with eggs and baking soda instead of baking powder. The result is a little lighter texture once its cooked, which allows you to be able to eat half a dozen before you start to feel super guilty.
The trick to good Quick Cinnamon Cake Doughnuts at home is making sure that your oil isn’t too hot or too cold. You’ll want to get that sweet spot of 350-375 degrees right. Too hot and the outside will be done before the inside. Too cold and you’ll have a greasy mess. Get out the digital thermometer to keep an eye on it so you can regulate the oil temperature with your stovetop. And wooden chopsticks of the handles of wooden spoons work the best for flipping and removing from the oil here. You can do it with tongs but you might crush one side of your pretty little doughnuts getting them out of the oil.
These will keep for a couple days in an airtight container, if they last that long.
I made a chocolate version of these quick donuts that you can find here. It also has step-by-step pictures if you need them!
Ingredients
- 2 T lemon juice
- 1/2 cup milk
- 2 T shortening or lard
- 1/4 cup sugar
- ¼ cup brown sugar
- 1 egg
- 1/2 t . vanilla extract
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- ½ teaspoon cinnamon
- ¼ teaspoon nutmeg
- 1/2 t . baking soda
- 1/4 t . salt
- 1 quart oil for frying
- Sugar Coating:
- ½ cup sugar
- 1 teaspoon cinnamon
Instructions
- Stir the lemon juice into the milk and set aside until milk thickens. In a medium bowl, mix together the shortening and ¼ cup white sugar and ¼ cup brown sugar until well incorporated.
- Beat in the egg and vanilla until all of the lumps are gone and mixture is smooth.
- In a small bowl sift together the flour, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, and salt. Alternate stirring in flour and milk into the egg mixture until a soft dough forms.
- Dust a work surface with flour and briefly knead the dough. Pat out the dough into a disc and roll out to about 1/3-inch thickness.
- Using a donut cutter, a biscuit cutter, or a glass and cut out as many donuts as you can. Re-roll out dough scraps to use up all of the dough. If you don’t have a donut cutter, use your fingers to poke a hole in the middle.
- Lay out doughnuts on a wax paper lined tray and let stand for 10 minutes. Heat the oil to 375 degrees. While waiting for the oil, make the sugar coating.
- In a bowl , mix together the remaining sugar and cinnamon, set aside.
- To fry donuts, gently drop 3-4 donuts in the hot oil and cook for 1-2 minutes on each side, flipping once (the handles of wooden spoons or wooden chopsticks are the best tools here). Remove from the oil and drain on a wire rack. Continue with the rest.
- To coat the donuts, place the still warm donuts, one at a time, into the sugar mixture and jiggle a little bit so that you get a nice sugary coating. Set back on the wire rack and continue with the remaining donuts.
- Serve and enjoy!
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