Don’t you just love it when you Google a recipe, give it a try and it’s perfect? I do but then I hate it when I lose it. As was the case with this so, so simple Glazed Doughnut Cake I found years ago and used to make it all the time. When I wanted to make it again just recently, do you think I could find it? Oh no! But I did and I want to share it here, for my own sake!

If you love doughnuts, cinnamon and an easy recipe, then this is one for you. A soft spongy cake like dough smothered with a buttery, cinnamon mixtured, baked and then topped with a sweet sticky glaze. Just like a doughnut but made into a sheet cake. It’s suitable to freeze but it’s best eaten when it’s straight out of the oven, all bubbly and hot.

This recipe does contain yeast but if you’ve never worked with yeast before, this is a good one to get started on. There’s nothing to it really. You only have to mix the yeast with warm milk, mix through the other ingredients, let sit for 15 minutes and then bake. No kneading required. I’m forever grateful for Nicole Weston from Baking Bites who I got the recipe from. It changed my world when I wanted to serve the children a hot doughnut treat without all the fuss of making doughnuts. 

Mix the flour, sugar and salt together in a bowl.

Mix together  yeast with warm milk. A box of yeast sachets is available in the baking aisle of the supermarket. You’ll need two sachets for this recipe.

It will start to froth up. 

Add the yeast/milk mixture and remaining ingredients to the flour, sugar and salt and mix together until a dough forms.

Press this into a 20x25cm slice tin lined with baking paper and allow to ‘rest’ in a warm place for approximately 15 minutes.

The yeast will be activated and it will puff up.

While the dough is resting, melt butter and add cinnamon and brown sugar.

Pour onto batter.

With a knife, swirl the cinnamon/butter mixture all over the batter so it is mixed in.

Bake for about 30 minutes. (I had mine on the bottom shelf of the oven so it browned a little too much on the bottom but it was still good to eat.)

While still warm, pour over glaze. I coloured mine pink because the kids always seemed to like the pink glazed doughnuts when we buy them. Now that I’ve found one of my favourite all time recipes, there’s no need to buy doughnuts anymore. Eat while still warm. Be careful not to burn your mouth though. This is definitely a great one for winter mornings, perfect for breakfast and perfect to freeze for lunchboxes. The kids loved it.