DOUGHNUTS!!!!! or DONUTS??

Do I have your attention now?? No matter the spelling, (for my own purposes, I choose "doughnuts"), those rings of heaven are truly amazing. Now, I will preface this post with this simple fact: fried doughnuts, or however Krispy Kreme makes them, are the best ever. However, since I do not own a deep frier and would honestly never want one, I decided to try baking my doughnuts.

It all started with a trip to Goodwill. I was killing some time, waiting for a coworker to get off of work when I stopped by the thrift store. I perused the isles, not expecting to find anything, when BAM! I see these pans:

How adorable are those? Never in my life would I expect to find doughnut pans at Goodwill. Needless to say, along with a Unicorn painting, I purchased the $2.00 pans and went on my merry way. That evening, as I was waiting for Ryan to get home, I thought to myself, "What the hell, I want to make doughnuts!!" So, I scrubbed the pans and went to work. I found this recipe (thanks again, Pinterest) Mini Baked Donuts and started mixing.

I'll just cut to the chase and say that my doughnuts didn't turn out that wonderful. I'll just show you what I mean...

Baking Tip #12: As you can see, I overfilled the circles. Try to only fill them about a third of the way full. I just used a gallon zip lock bag and cut the tip off of it and piped the dough into the pans. Little did I know that some would be filled way too much and look like weird little mushrooms instead of doughnuts. See? ---->

Anyway, I then moved onto the glaze/icing. It was very simple but it was way too sweet! I'm not quite sure how doughnut makers get the glaze to be sweet but not "hurt your teeth" sweet. Ya know what I mean? I added sprinkles just for looks because they definitely didn't help the sweet factor. Also, the glaze was very thin so, Baking Tip #13: Double dip the glaze (if you like the taste of it) to get that thick, pretty looking glaze that the professionals always have. Let the first layer dry for just a little bit and then go in for the second! Well... do that before you add your toppings, of course! :):)

So my doughnuts looked okay, but they didn't taste very good. They were as hard as hockey pucks within the hour (don't ask me why, I have no clue). But!! Never fear! Not all was lost because I decided to bake something completely different. My best friend in the universe [BFITU] and her fiance sent a mason jar cookie mix to us for Christmas. Yeah, I hadn't baked them until now... No judging! They were juuust fine!! So, since my doughnuts were a bust, I mixed together these little babies and they were delicious! Here they are:

They were wonderful and my guests (interviewees for the grad program that Ryan's in) enjoyed them as well. Thanks, Steph and Keith! Hopefully my next batch of doughnuts goes better than this one, but at least I had a backup plan.

Until later,
Baker in Training

PS. I'm in the market for a good-but-not-a-million-dollar digital camera if y'all have any suggestions! Thanks!