Oven Baked Mini Chocolate Doughnuts

Doughnut, donut who doesn't love them! The good thing about these doughnuts is that you don't feel soo guilty having more than one as they are only mini! (That's just my way of justifying scoffing down a load of these little goodies).

This oven baked doughnut recipe is so easy to make and I reallyyyy recommended you to give the recipe a try even if you're not that into baking. I loved these doughnuts so much that I am going to, in the future, experiment with the recipe to try out different flavour combinations.

Oven Baked Mini Chocolate Doughnuts: (Makes 24)

Ingredients:

250g Plain Flour

2tsp Baking Powder

1/2 tsp Bicarbonate of Soda

1/2 tsp Ground Nutmeg

2 Eggs

130g Soft Light Brown Sugar

120ml Milk

4 tbsp Melted Butter

120g Natural Yogurt

3 tsp Vanilla Extract

For The Glaze:

100g Milk Chocolate

100g Dark Chocolate

5 tsp Golden Syrup

4 tbsp Butter

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to gas mark 4. Line a mini doughnut tray with butter and flour.

2. Mix the flour, baking powder, bicarbonate of soda and nutmeg into a bowl.

3. Whisk the eggs, milk, brown sugar and natural yogurt together in an separate bowl until well combined, add the melted butter and vanilla extract into this mixture; mix till well combined.

4. Pour the wet egg mixture into the dry ingredients and mix till well combined.

5. Put the batter into the greased doughnut tin until half full. It will be easiest to do this using a piping bag.

6. Bake for 10-15 minutes until golden brown.

7. To make the chocolate glaze melt all the ingredients and mix them together. Once the doughnuts have cooled dip the top of them into the chocolate glaze and then leave to cool, the golden syrup should give the chocolate glaze a nice shine.

I highly recommend only filling the doughnut tin half full as otherwise, like what happened in my first batch, they will rise to high causing there to be no whole in the bottom. However, this is easily solved by pushing the whole through after the doughnuts have been baked butttt it will be a lot easier if you do not overfill them to begin with!

If you think 24 sounds like too many doughnuts to make trust me you will have wished you had made more as they will be gone in no time!

Grissini Breadsticks

These crispy, thin, salty snacks are an great snack for on-the-go or a great lunch if you were to have them with dips such as hummus or even salsa.

The dough for these little grissini breadsticks is basically thinly rolled out pizza dough which is super easyyy to make. 

The great thing about grissini breadsticks is that they have a rustic style so you do not need to spend ages on the presentation of them; which is a massiveee bonus and makes them even less time consuming!

Grissini Breadsticks Recipe (Makes 24):

Ingredients:

60g Wholemeal Flour

180ml Warm Water

1tsp Honey

7g Active Dry Yeast

180g Plain Flour

3tbsp Extra Virgin Olive Oil plus extra to grease the bowl

1 and a 1/2 tsp Salt

Topping Options: Finely chopped fresh or dry herbs, Parmesan Cheese, Poppy Seeds, Sesame Seeds, Salt or Black Pepper.

Method:

1. Combine the wholemeal flour, water, yeast and honey in an bowl till well combined. Leave for 10 minutes until the mixture is bubbly and foamy. 

2. Add the plain flour, olive oil and salt to the mixture, mix till well combined. Knead for 10 minutes until smooth.

3. Place the ball of dough into an lightly oiled bowl, cover with a towel and leave to rise in an warm place for 1 hour or until doubled in size.

4. Preheat the oven to gas mark 7 and line 2 large trays with butter and flour or baking paper.

5. Once the dough has risen punch the dough and then if adding herbs or any other spices knead them in now.

6. Pat the dough into an rectangle. Slice this rectangle into very thin slices long ways. Roll these slices out to your desired length for the grissini breadsticks and place onto the baking tray.

7. If you wish to coat the breadsticks in any topping such as poppy seeds or Parmesan cheese now is the time to do it.

8. Leave to rest for 15 minutes until they get a bit more puffy.

9. Bake the grissini breadsticks in the preheated oven for 15 minutes checking on them every 5 minutes to ensure they do not burn.

10. Leave to cool and then hey presto easy as pie you have a batch of homemade grissini breadsticks!