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

St Clement's Cakes (Glazed Orange & Lemon Cakes)

In case I haven’t mentioned it before, what I have in the pantry or fridge dictates what I’ll be baking that day. This particular day I had one orange and one sad looking lemon left in the vegie crisper. I thought about combining the two. It reminded of a childhood rhyme we used to sing when we slid down the slippery slide at primary school. Two kids would be standing at the bottom of the slide, making an arch with their arms. As the person sliding down neared the end of the song, the two standing would drop their arms and chop off their head. I can remember it like it was yesterday.

“Oranges and lemons” say the bells of St. Clement’s

“You owe me five farthings” say the bells of St. Martin’s

“When will you pay me?” say the bells of Old Bailey

“When I grow rich” say the bells of Shoreditch

“When will that be?” say the bells of Stepney

“I do not know” say the great bells of Bow

“Here comes a candle to light you to bed

Here comes a chopper to chop off your head

Chip chop chip chop – the last man’s dead.”

When I told my girlfriend what I’d baked, which started out as Orange & Lemon Cakes, she suggested calling them “St Clement’s Cakes”. I googled it and it is actually a cake. There are a few variations around. Some recipes are flourless and some are drenched in a citrus infused syrup but mine was just a standard orange cake recipe with the addition of Greek yoghurt (which also needed using up) and baked in a mini bar tin. I’m finding no one eats too much cake in one sitting in this house so I’m better off freezing them individually for later on.

 

 

The orange juice was used inside the cake and the juice of the lemon for the icing glaze. Both the lemon and orange zest was used inside the cake. The contrast between the sweetness from the orange and the tartness from the lemon balanced this cake beautifully.

 

 

Spray the mini bar cake tin thoroughly with oil spray.

 

 

Add the orange and lemon zest plus the orange juice to the wet ingredients then mix in the yoghurt.

 

 

I love the taste of cake batters but I absolutely adore an orange cake batter. I could’ve eaten this lot as is.

 

 

I always use an ice cream scoop to spoon the batter into the pan. You get an even size for each cake.

 

 

The cakes didn’t rise much but that’s okay. Good for small fingers (and big mouths like mine).

 

 

Allow to cool on a wire rack before icing with the lemon glaze.

 

 

There’s something about the addition of Greek yoghurt to the cake. It makes a dense, moist cake which is rich and full of flavour. Hope you enjoy these.

 

Recipe

St Clement’s Cakes (Glazed Orange & Lemon Cakes)

• 125gm butter, melted
• 3/4 cup sugar
• 1 tbs orange zest
• 2 tbs lemon zest
• 1/3 cup orange juice
• 2 eggs, beaten
• 400gm Greek yoghurt
• 1 3/4 cups Self Raising flour

Glaze:

• 1 cup icing sugar
• 1-2 tbs lemon juice

1. Preheat oven to 170 deg C.
2. Combine melted butter, sugar, juice and zest and mix well until sugar is dissolved.
3. Add beaten eggs, one at time then add yoghurt.
4. Gently stir in flour until well combined.
5. Spoon batter into well greased mini bar cake pan (other cake pans can be used if you’d like one larger cake).
6. Bake for approximately 30 minutes or until a skewer inserted into the cake comes out clean.
7. Cool on a wire rack.
8. To make glaze, combine icing sugar and lemon juice until icing sugar has dissolved.
9. Spoon over each cake.