There’s something about COVID and quarantine that as everyone going wild for banana bread. And while I enjoy a good slice of banana bread spread with a bit of butter, I decided to approach banana bread in a slightly different way, by making banana bread donuts.
If you don’t have a donut pan, don’t worry. You can make this recipe in a muffin tin. You will just add a couple of tablespoons in each tin instead of filling it to the amount you would normally for muffins. A muffin tin donut just won’t have the donut hole. But hey, maybe if you do the muffin tin version, you can stuff the muffins! There’s an idea! I might have to use that next time I make a donut!
The donut batter is made similarly to my banana bread recipe, just slightly different ratios. The different ratios make the texture a little more like a cake donut texture instead of a bread texture. Mash the bananas, mix in the wet ingredients, then mix in the dry ingredients. Easy peasy. Like the banana bread recipe, I prefer to use over-ripe bananas that I store in my freezer. They mash well and tend to be sweeter.
When the batter is just mixed together, spoon it into a piping bag. I find it easiest to put the piping bag into a large class. That way I have one and to hold the spatula and the other to hold the bowl instead of having to use one hand to hold open the piping bag.
Pipe the batter into a lightly greased donut pan. When filling a donut pan, you only want to fill them about halfway. You don’t want to cover the hole in the center. Otherwise your baked donuts, went they rise, won’t have a hole in them. If you don’t have a donut pan and are using a muffin tin, then I would still recommend only filling them halfway. That way you don’t risk them looking more like muffins or cupcakes instead of donuts. Also, if you are using a muffin tin, you can skip the piping bag step and just spoon the batter into the muffin tins.
I don’t have a very big sweet tooth so I use a mini-donut pan. They’re like the perfect bite of sweet without feeling like I have to eat a whole donut. And, a mini-donut bakes quicker than a large donut.
When the donuts are baked, remove them from the pan and place them on a cooling rack.
I didn’t think about how I wanted to glaze the donuts until I had the first batch in the oven. They ended up getting a nutella glaze. But, I think any nut butter glaze would be delicious, or a chocolate glaze. A good glaze ratio is 2-3 tablespoons of liquid to 1 cup of powdered sugar. In this case, I used 1 tablespoon of Nutella, 2 tablespoons of milk, and 1 cup of powdered sugar.
Once the donuts are cooled, dip the tops of them in the icing glaze. Then, place the donuts back on the cooling rack for any access glaze to drip off.
Finish the donuts with your favorite chocolate sprinkles!
Banana Bread Donuts
Equipment
- donut pan
- piping bag
Ingredients
- 2 bananas mashed
- 1 egg
- 1 tsp vanilla
- 2 tbsp canola oil
- 4 tbsp sugar
- 1 cup flour
- pinch salt
- 1/2 tsp baking powder
- 1/2 tsp baking soda
- 2 tbsp milk
- 1 tbsp nutella
- 1 cup powdered sugar
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
- Mash the bananas in a bowl. Mix in the egg, vanilla, oil, and sugar.
- Next mix in the salt, baking powder, and baking soda. Lastly, mix in the flour.
- Place the batter in a piping bag and pipe into a greased donut pan.
- Bake the donuts for 10-15 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the donut comes out clean.
- Cool the donuts for a few minutes. Then remove from the pan and place on a cooling rack to finish cooling before icing.
- While the donuts cool, mix together the icing ingredients: milk, nutella, and powdered sugar.
- Ice the donuts by dipping the top of the in the icing. Place the iced donuts back on a cooling rack so that any excess icing drips off. Top with sprinkles if you like!
