A lazy holiday morning and what better thing to do than cook with your kids.  Cereal would have worked but cooking together can be a learning experience and bring you closer as a family too.  

Zack worked hard on a beautiful fruit salad while I made donuts.  

My kids love the idea of homemade donuts, that they get to decorate and are warm and reasonably healthy.  I have adapted this recipe from a few different ones on the internet.  There are definitely fancier recipes with yeast but these are as easy as making muffins and any kid can follow the recipe.

Baked Buttermilk Doughnuts

• Makes 10 servings (Serving size: 1 plain doughnut)

Ingredients

• Nonstick cooking spray
• 1 cup whole-wheat flour
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ½ cup sugar
• 1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
• ¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg (leave out if you are topping with chocolate, just my opinion)
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¾ cup low-fat buttermilk (1%) or milk with 1 Tbsp. vinegar
• 2 large eggs
• ¼ cup honey
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 tablespoon vanilla extract

Preparation

1. Preheat oven to 425°. Lightly coat a doughnut pan with cooking spray.  I bought mine on Amazon, Norpro brand – never sticks.

2. Combine flours and next 4 ingredients (through salt) in a large bowl, stirring well with a whisk.

3. Combine buttermilk, eggs, honey, butter, and vanilla, stirring well with a whisk. Add buttermilk mixture to flour mixture; whisk just until combined.

4. Spoon batter into doughnut pans, filling two thirds full. Bake in middle of oven until doughnuts spring back when touched and are golden on bottom (about 8 minutes). Let cool in pan slightly (about 4 minutes); turn out.

5. Coat with toppings, if desired.  For powdered donuts, just put some powdered sugar in a bowl and roll the donut in the bowl while it is still warm.  Or you can make a simple additions to the batter like cinnamon or nuts.  Make a simple sugar glaze with powdered sugar, vanilla and milk.  Or follow the ganache recipe below… Joe insisted on Christmas sprinkles!

Seriously yummy chocolate glaze… found on http://www.handmadecharlotte.com/baked-doughnuts-chocolate-glaze/

Choco­late Ganache Glaze
Adapted from Dor­rie Greenspan

This makes just enough glaze for 6 dough­nuts. You can eas­ily dou­ble it if you’d like a bit more.

• ¼ cup heavy cream (I used half and half)
• 1 table­spoon sugar
• 1 table­spoon water
• 2 ounces semi­sweet or bit­ter­sweet chocolate (add 1 more ounce of chocolate if you are using half and half)
• Sprin­kles (optional)

Break the chocolate into small pieces and put them in a mixing bowl. Bring heavy cream, sugar, and water to a full boil. Pour the hot cream over the choco­late, and cover with plastic wrap (I used a porcelain plate, worked like a charm) for 3–5 min­utes. Uncover, and using a whisk, mix chocolate and cream together until smooth. Use glaze imme­di­ately on dough­nuts. (I found dunk­ing the dough­nuts in the glaze worked well.) Top with sprin­kles (if desired) while the glaze is still setting.

Fabulous and fun!  Added a cup of coffee and I was in heaven.