Passiflora Home

Baked Vanilla Bean Doughnuts

 By Carla Cardello

These simple yet unforgettable Baked Vanilla Bean Doughnuts will make vanilla your new favorite flavor.

If you had to pick one dessert to describe your personality, what would it be? Maybe you’re traditional like chocolate chip cookies or a little bit sassy like a fruit tart. Maybe you’re intense like Chocolate Chili Cookies. Or maybe you’re simple like these Baked Vanilla Bean Doughnuts. Today I’m teaming up with Baker’s Joy to help launch their “Which Sweet Treat Are You?” quiz that pairs your baking personality with one of nine delicious desserts. My challenge was to create a simple yet not boring recipe focusing on vanilla. Trust me when I say this – these doughnuts will change your mind about liking vanilla.

If you’ve been reading my blog for awhile, you probably know I’m not exactly simple when developing recipes, so this was a fun challenge for me. What can I make with vanilla that is simple yet unforgettable? After all, simple does not equal boring. I chose to make doughnuts (or is it donuts?) in my baking pan since they take little effort to make. Make the batter, pipe into pan, bake 10 minutes, done. If you wake up early enough, I bet you could have these ready in time for breakfast.

Vanilla is one of those ingredients where you need to buy high-quality vanilla. Look for the bottle that says pure vanilla extract and not imitation vanilla extract. I promise it’s worth those extra couple of bucks. Next you’ll need to buy vanilla beans. Don’t bother buying any from the store because they are expensive; it’s much cheaper to buy online. Mine are from Marx Food but you can also find them on King Arthur Flour and even eBay.

If you say you don’t like vanilla, chances are you never had vanilla bean before. Ice cream is the perfect example. There’s boring vanilla ice cream from an ice cream stand, then there’s homemade vanilla bean ice cream. These tender baked doughnuts are speckled with vanilla bean, which kicks up the vanilla flavor a notch. Maybe I should’ve called them Triple Vanilla Doughnuts because you have vanilla bean and extract in the batter then a vanilla glaze on top.

Make sure you take the “Which Sweet Treat Are You?” quiz then come back here and leave a comment telling me what your dessert personality is! From April 22 – May 5, you can take the quiz as many times as you want for a chance to win a daily prize which includes $50 Visa gift cards and a year’s supply of Baker’s Joy and be entered to win the grand prize of $500 Visa gift card, KitchenAid mixer, and a year’s supply of Baker’s Joy.

Baked Vanilla Bean Doughnuts

 

Save Print

Prep time

30 mins

Cook time

10 mins

Total time

40 mins

 

Author: Carla Cardello (www.chocolatemoosey.com)

Serves: 9 doughnuts

Ingredients

Cooking spray (preferably Baker's Joy)

Doughnuts

• 1 1/3 cups all purpose flour
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/8 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 4 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1 vanilla bean, split in half down the middle longways and seeds scraped into a bowl (discard the pod)
• 1 egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup milk

Glaze

• 1 cup powdered sugar
• Pinch of salt
• 3-4 teaspoons milk
• 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 375F. Lightly spray two baked doughnut pans.*
2. In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt.
3. In a large mixing bowl, beat together the butter and sugar until creamy, about 2-3 minutes. Beat in the vanilla bean seeds, egg, and vanilla extract until incorporated then add the milk. Gradually beat in the flour mixture until just incorporated.
4. Spoon the batter into a pastry bag** then pipe into each doughnut cavity, being careful not to fill it too full. Bake 8-10 minutes or until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool 5 minutes then remove from the pan and finish cooling on a cooling rack.

For the glaze

1. In a medium bowl, whisk together the powdered sugar, salt, 3 teaspoons milk, and vanilla until smooth. If it's too thick for a glaze, add the extra teaspoon of milk.
2. Once the doughnuts are completely cool, dip the tops of each doughnut into the glaze and let the excess drip off. Let the glaze harden before serving. Store in an airtight container.

Notes

*If you only have one doughnut pan, bake the first six doughnuts. Once you remove them from the pan, cool in the fridge for 5 minutes then finish baking the remaining doughnuts.

**It's easiest to pipe the batter into the pan using a pastry bag fitted with a large round tip (either a real pastry bag or a sandwich bag with the corner cut off), but you can also carefully spoon in the batter.