Glazed Doughnut Cake

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. 

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Glazed Doughnut Cake

A delicious glazed doughnut like cake that involves using yeast but is so easy to make.

Prep Time 30 minutes

Cook Time 30 minutes

Total Time 1 hour

Servings 18

Author Anne

Ingredients

Cake batter

• 1.1/2 cups plain flour
• 1/3 cup sugar
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 4 tsp dry yeast 2 sachets
• 2/3 cup warm milk
• 3 tbs vegetable oil
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 egg beaten

Cinnamon topping

• 3 tbs butter melted
• 3/4 cup brown sugar
• 1 tsp ground cinnamon

Glaze

• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1-2 tbs milk
• food colouring optional

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 170 deg C.
2. Line a 20x25cm (8"x10") pan with baking paper.
3. In a large bowl, combine flour, sugar and salt.
4. Dissolve the yeast in a measuring cup filled with the warmed milk, then stir milk mixture, vegetable oil, vanilla extract and egg into the flour mixture.
5. Mix well, until very smooth.
6. Pour into prepared pan and let rest for 15 minutes.
7. While the dough rests, mix together melted butter, brown sugar and cinnamon.
8. Spread evenly on top of rested dough and swirl the mixture into the dough with a knife.
9. Bake for about 30 minutes, until bread is lightly browned at the edges and the center of the bread springs back when lightly pressed. Some of the sugar mixture on top may still be bubbling.
10. Mix the icing sugar and milk together to form an icing and drizzle it onto the bread.
11. Serve warm.

Recipe Notes

Food colouring could be added to the icing mixture.

Adapted from Quick & Easy Cinnamon Bun Bread by Baking Bites

The Easiest Cinnamon Rolls

Don’t you just love it when your kids organise play dates? Well, in this particular case my 9 year old son did arrange it, with mine and his mate’s Mum’s help but I completely forgot about this boy coming over and, as per usual, I was scurrying around at the last minute trying to find something to serve them for afternoon tea. I had to act quickly because I was due to collect them from school so I checked the freezer and the frozen puff pastry was staring at me. (I always have puff pastry in the fridge. It’s perfect for emergencies of any kind.) I thought “hmmm, I wonder if I just spread the sheet with a little butter, brown sugar and cinnamon, rolled them up, baked them and drizzled with icing?” And that’s exactly what I did for the easiest Cinnamon Rolls in the entire universe.

Take your sheet of puff pastry out of the freezer and turn your oven on to about 220 deg C.

Spread the sheet of puff with butter.

Sprinkle with brown sugar and then cinnamon. (I wasn’t sure of the quantities. Just enough until the pastry is covered lightly.)

Roll up into a ‘scroll’ shape and cut into slices about 1.5cm wide (1″).

Grease a cupcake pan really well with oil spray. You might even want to put a cupcake liner in there. I had a couple cinnamon rolls stick because when the sugar melted it turned into a sticky toffee mix and stuck. I had to pry out with a knife.

Bake until golden brown and bubbly. You can brush with an egg wash to make more golden brown but once the brown sugar/cinnamon mix melts, it makes them brown.

Make a simple glaze with 1 cup of icing sugar and about 1 tablespoon of milk (you can colour the icing mixture if you want) and spoon over the cinnamon rolls. You could even melt some chocolate and drizzle over.

I swear, these were so, so good and just like the ‘real’ thing. I had to taste test one, you know, before my son’s company came over and I had to stop myself. They were bite sized little bundles of cinnamon, sugary flakiness and so quick! Boy, they were quick. I think they’ll become a regular Sunday morning treat or if any of my children decide to have friends over and Mumma forgets to organise afternoon tea.

Cinnamon Swirl Banana Cake

 

Anyone tire of Banana Cake? I must admit, I do. It might be one of those ‘go to’ recipes for a lot of people because, like all of us, we’ve all got a heap of black bananas in the freezer. I buy them, with all good intent that my children will eat them but as soon as a black spot appears, that’s it. They won’t. “Back in my day…..” we wouldn’t have had a choice. It was that or nothing and I think they actually taste sweeter when they’re a bit ripe. Anyway, my children drive me nuts sometimes but that’s another story. 

 

 

To tell you the truth, I can’t remember where I got this recipe from. I thought I’d try something different apart from my usual No Fuss Fudge Cake recipe which I use for just about any cake. Without any disrespect to the writer of the recipe, I did find this one a little dry but it still got eaten. 

 

 

 

It’s just basically your normal banana cake with a mixture of cinnamon and brown sugar sprinkled on top of half the batter and then the remaining batter poured on top and baked. You can leave it like that or run your knife through it to get a ‘swirl’ effect, like I did. I bake most of my cakes for the kids in a square pan. It’s easy to slice into even pieces and what I do is slice it and wrap in cling film and pop in the freezer, ready to grab for the lunch boxes.

 

 

This cake was received well and is just a little different to your normal, plain banana which, don’t get me wrong, can be very nice but I get a little over it. (Another thing I do to change up a banana cake is to add 1/2 a cup of peanut butter or any other nut butter you have. Nutella is also nice.) I’ve got to keep on top of my game when it comes to my kids or things just get wasted. Just use your favourite banana cake recipe and see how many different combinations you come up with. Maybe you’ve got a favourite way to adjust the good old banana cake. I’d love to know.