Tiffany Blue Baby Donuts

I have always loved Tiffany Blue.

(I also love Tiffany & Co. but that's not the subject of this post.) I am so obsessed with the colour that I even managed to convince my SIL to adopt it as the theme colour for her upcoming wedding. Of course, yours truly is in charge of all the baking and decorating the dessert table. And of course, the baked goods have to match the Tiffany Blue theme. So as I was surfing the internet for ideas, I came across a recipe for baked donuts. Yes, I kid you not. No more deep frying donuts for tea time. Not only is it easy to make (no KitchenAid mixer needed here), it is also healthy!

Extremely easy recipe, you can even get cheap labour like the one pictured above, to help you with the mixing. Since no mixer was needed, matching measuring cups from KitchenAid pun bolehlah. 

The recipe calls for the use of a mini donut pan. Mini donut pan??? Where do I get one? And as I started browsing through the pictures included with the recipe, it dawned on me - I do own one! I had purchased a variety of baking pans during the Macy warehouse sale back in 2009, and even with all the baking I've been doing these past few years, this particular baking tin had remained unused - mainly because I didn't know what to use it for! Hopefully, upon the discovery of the use of the mini donut pan, I will start utilizing it more often.

Vanilla Bean Baby Doughnuts

Recipe from SprinkleBakes.com here. Yields 3-4 dozen baby donuts.

Doughnut Batter:2 cups all purpose flour, sifted
3/4 cup granulated sugar
2 tsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
3/4 cup buttermilk
1 tsp. vanilla extract
2 eggs, lightly beaten
2 tbsp. butter, melted
Seeds from one vanilla bean

Method of Preparation:

1. Preheat oven to 425°F (218degC). Spray donut pan with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In large mixing bowl, sift together all purpose flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. Add buttermilk, eggs, vanilla extract, vanilla seeds and butter and beat until just combined. Spray doughnut cavities with cooking spray or brush with butter. Fill each donut cup approximately 1/2 full.
3. Bake 5-8 minutes or until the top of the donuts spring back when touched. Let cool in pan for 4–5 minutes before removing. Finish doughnuts with vanilla glaze. Doughnuts are best served fresh.

Vanilla Glaze:
1 cup confectioner’ s sugar
1 tbsp. milk
½ tsp. vanilla extract
4 drops of liquid blue food coloring

Method of Preparation:
In small bowl, stir together sugar, milk and vanilla extract until sugar is completely dissolved. Add food coloring and stir until color is uniform. Use immediately to glaze doughnuts.

Here's the mini doughnut pan.

Aiden hereby reminds you to pun the donut batter into a piping bag. Since the batter is quite runny, the piping bag makes it easier to fill the cavities of the pan and prevents spillage.

Even with the piping bag, we made quite a mess!

I need a new oven! The back of my oven has a higher temperature compared to the front. Which is why the back row donuts have bumps and looks browner than the row in front.

Cute mini donuts, the size is about half the palm of my hand.

Next, glazing it to the right colour. I wanted Tiffany Blue, which really leans more towards blue instead of green. In the picture below, I tried using Americolour Turquoise. The left one obviously had too much colour in it. For the one on the right, I got a bit smarter and started adding the colour drop by drop. But even then it looks more like Petronas green instead of Tiffany Blue. *sigh*

Glazing the donuts.

Glazing donuts is not easy too. I think you need a steady hand to get a nice, even coat, and the right glaze consistency to ensure that it doesn't drip down the sides of your donut.

Once the glaze dried up, it looked a tad more presentable. But it is definitely not easy to try and get the right tinge of colour.  

The flowers and box were my guide for Tiffany Blue. *shakes head*

Such a far cry from the perfect Tiffany Blue baby donuts pictured here.

Just purchased Wilton's Teal and Sky Blue colouring, because I read that mixing these two yields a closer shade of Tiffany Blue. Next try, perhaps!