Light and Airy Baked Cake Donuts

After baking the Magic Chocolate Flan Cake, I had every intention of stopping eating for at least a week.  Or maybe just massive dieting.  After all, the kids were leaving soon and I needed to get started on convincing my stomach that it does not require three big meals a day.  One meal and a few healthy snacks scattered throughout the day is adequate for me....really.  But then I was reading this book, Powdered Peril,  a few nights ago.  It is one of my favorite genres, murder with recipes!

These are also called cozies, because while someone always dies, you don't get (have) to experience the murder and mayhem up close and personal.   Someone no one really likes is found murdered and then the protagonist gets to help solve the mystery of who done it.  While making delicious food and finding a hot, usually a cop, guy to feed and fall in love with.  Love, food and murder.  A winning combination.  What's not to like?  Some of my favorite authors of mysteries with recipes include Diane Mott Davidson and Joanne Fluke.

I found this book while trolling the list of new books cataloged by the library system where I worked.  Why hadn't I read Jessica Beck before?  No idea. But I fired up my Nook and ordered the first four books in the series.  Right in my bed,  at night.  Love my Nook.   I like to start at the beginning and read a series chronologically. 

I also like when a recipe catches my eye and then I make it and I love it!  I wanted to try the donut recipe with chunks of apples, but that was a fried donut.  The one I chose is a baked donut and it made little ones.  Donut hole size.  So then I could just eat one and serve the others to the visiting family as a final treat.

You didn't buy that for a minute, did you?  Well, it made sixteen donuts and there are four of us.  Do the math.  I had four and if someone else didn't finish their share, I may have had another one.  Who's counting?

   

Light and Airy Baked Cake Donuts

1 egg
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/8 cup canola oil     Hey! Low fat, too!!!
1 Tablespoon butter, melted    Oh, well, it's only 1 Tablespoon
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

1 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon salt


   

Heat the oven to 365.  If you have mini donut baker, you can use it with this recipe.  I used a mini muffin pan and they were just the right size for two bites...or three if you are polite and not too terribly hungry.  The recipe said it would make 6 - 10 small donuts. 

   

I used some Crisco on a piece of waxed paper to grease 10 little indentations in the mini muffin pan.  I saved the greasy waxed paper and it is a good thing, as I ended up needing 16 holes.  Don't grease holes you don't end up using.  Not good for the pan.

In a large bowl, whisk the egg and the sugar until blended.  Then add the buttermilk, oil, butter and the vanilla and whisk everything together.  Place your sifter on a small plate and fill it with the dry ingredients, flour, baking powder, nutmeg and salt.  I didn't measure the nutmeg.  I just finely grated what looked to me like the right amount.

   

Sift right into the bowl and then dump whatever is left on the plate into the batter.  Mix well.

I used the smallest cookie scoop and made a rounded scoop.  The recipe called for walnut sized portions and that looked about walnut size to me. 

   

Once again, the recipe called for baking 6 - 10 minutes.  That may work for a donut baker, but my oven took about 12 minutes.  They were just starting to get golden brown on top.

Serve with orange marmalade.  I didn't have marmalade but I did have some homemade blackberry jam leftover from this summer, so I used that!

These were a bit hit.  Really and truly, light and airy.  They were also delicious just plain with nothing on them.  They would also be good with some powdered sugar sifted on top.  I mentioned to Tara that the next time I make this (and I will) I may want to put in some lemon zest.  And then she suggested making some lemon glaze (powdered sugar with a bit of lemon juice) to pour over them.  Oh, man, does that sound good! 

 

   

Bad thoughts!  Go away!  Come again some other day, like when I have lost the weight I gained over Christmas!

Magic Chocolate Flan Cake

   
   

In a previous post I made an Orange Flan.  My search engine on this site is wonky, so if you want to see it, Google Orange Flan Shenandoah and it will come up.

While researching flan recipes, I found a lot of references about flan cake.  I didn't see how flan, which is a type of custard worked with cake. My daughter, Trista, lived in Mexico for a year and she said it was one of her favorite things.

Then I bought a one year subscription to Cook's Country magazine.  Not only is it as magazine with recipes, but it shows how they change and develop them and gives recommendations for all things cooking related.  This month featured a Magic Chocolate Flan Cake recipe.  It went into the make-for-Christmas pile on my counter.  The magic takes place when you cook the flan cake.  You put the cake batter in a Bundt pan first and then pour the flan on top.  They switch places during the baking process.  It's is fun and delicious and a science experiment all in one.  You gotta try it!

Magic Chocolate Flan Cake


Cake

1/2 cup caramel sauce or topping
1/2 cup plus 2 Tablespoons flour
1/3 cup cocoa
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/8 teaspoon salt
4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped (I had some dark chocolate chips left over and used them!)
6 Tablespoons butter
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Flan

2 (14 oz)  cans sweetened condensed milk  They recommended Eagle Brand
2 1/2 cups whole milk
6 ounces cream cheese I used Philadelphia.
6 large eggs plus 4 large egg yolks...you're gonna need 10 eggs and a whole dozen for this recipe!
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

First off you need to know that you will need to make this about 10 hours before you plan to eat it.  It takes time to bake and then chill. Twelve hours or overnight wouldn't hurt.

   

Preheat the oven to 350.  Grease a 12 cup non-stick Bundt pan.  I used wax paper and Crisco to grease the pan because the Bundt pan instructions said that I should not use Pam or any other spray and it came out so easy.

   

Buy some fancy caramel sauce, because you won't be making it and you want the best.

   

 Heat it a bit in the microwave to make it pourable and pour it evenly into the Bundt pan.

   

Put the chocolate and the butter in a large bowl and microwave just until melted.  It may look like it isn't melted, so take it out every 30 seconds or so and stir it a bit.  Whisk in the buttermilk, sugar and vanilla extract.  Then add the two eggs.  I did it this way so the heat of the melted butter and chocolate wouldn't curdle the eggs.  They are added last after everything has cooled off a bit.

   

Set a sifter on a small plate.  Place the flour, cocoa, baking soda and salt in the sift into the chocolaty mixture. Stir until just combined.  Spoon on top of the caramel in the Bundt pan and smooth out the top.

   

Now for the flan part.  My blender will not hold 2 quarts, so I had to divide this into 2 parts.  If yours will hold that much, go ahead and put everything in at once.  I wanted to make sure I didn't have too much in one part and not enough in the other so I divided it equally.  This is how I did it.

   

Place one can of the sweetened condensed milk and 1 1/4 cup whole milk in the mixer.  Add 3 eggs and 2 yolks and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla.  I had an 8 ounces package of Philadelphia cream cheese.  I cut it into fourths.  I put one whole section and then 1/2 of a second section in the blender.  Process until smooth.  It will take about one minute.  Pour that over the cake and then do the same thing one more time.  You will have one section of the cream cheese left over.  My cake started to float up before I finished processing the second part of the flan.  Don't worry if this happens.  It will do it in the oven in a bit anyway!

   

Just so you know, there will be a lot of dishes to do while you are waiting for the flan cake to cook!

   

Place the Bundt pan in a large roasting pan and place everything in the oven.  Pour hot water in the roasting pan until it reaches half way up,  being careful not to put any in the Bundt pan.  You should be careful not to burn yourself during this process and don't ask how I know this is an issue. : )

   

Bake in the 350 oven until a toothpick comes out clean from the cake and the flan is 180 degrees.  Mine was done at about 70 minutes, but the recipe suggested 75 to 90 minutes.  Remove the roasting pan and set on the stove.  Using mitts remove the Bundt pan.  Don't get your mitts in the water! 

   

It is cold here and I didn't start cooking as early as I should have, so I put my Bundt pan out on the table in the screen porch to spead up the cooling process. It may take you 2 hours to cool enough for it to go in the refrigerator.  Then chill 8 hours by their recommendation.  I  kept it in rigerator for 4 hours after an hour on the 40 degree porch and it worked out fine.

   

To remove the flan cake from the Bundt pan, fill the sink with hot tap water so that it will cover one third of the pan.  Set it in there for 1 minute.  Don't cheat.  Set it back up on the sink, dry the bottom and loosen the edges of the cake with a plastic knife.  Place a large serving plate over the top of the pan.  Hold the pan with one hand and the plate with the other and flip it over.  It will fall right onto the plate and the caramel sauce will ooze down the sides.

 

    

 

 

Serve big giant hunks to everyone or you will end up with  the rest to eat by yourself and you will have to put off your resolution to lose weight until next week.