I have a confession. I’m not a huge donut fan. I don’t mean that I do not like huge donuts, although I suppose I don’t. But also, I do not like normal-sized donuts. I think its because, when I was younger, during our road trips, we would stop at Krispy Kreme a lot, back when it was a rare treat and a novelty, before they began to appear at every mall in the form of some fundraiser or the other. I get carsick really quickly, so I began to associate donuts with feeling nauseous (through no fault of their own) and hence the donut-aversion.

I don’t, however, have any aversions to cake. Nor do I have the ability to resist really cute cake pans. Especially pans that cost less than $10 and, thanks to my student Amazon Prime membership, promise to be at my door in two days. As if that weren’t wonderful enough, these super cute donut shaped pans also come in a mini size!

Traditionally, donuts are fried, so I’m not sure that I can really call these donuts, but I think that if you, unlike me, found yourself craving a donut, these would do the trick. I know that there are recipes out there designed specifically for baked donuts, to give them a more true donut-like texture, but for these I just used chocolate cake batter. I’ve now used the word “donut” so much that it has lost all meaning.

I made these for my little sister’s birthday party this past weekend, and although they didn’t receive overwhelming verbal enthusiasm (because that is desperately uncool when you are a teenage girl), they were gone pretty quickly, so I can only assume they were acceptable to the discerning palettes of my sister and her friends.

I topped these donuts with a simple homemade chocolate ganache, and a few sprinkles to brighten things up, but because the donuts themselves are really cake, anything that you would top a cake with is fair game as far as decorating these goes. For the base, just use your favorite chocolate cake recipe, or, better yet, brownie recipe. Next time I make these, I’m definitely going to try using a brownie base, for a denser, fudgier donut.

For the base, use your favorite chocolate cake/brownie recipe!

The baking time for the larger donuts was around 5-6 minutes, and for the smaller donuts the baking time was around 3 minutes.

Ganache recipe:

1 1/2 cups semi-sweet chocolate chips

1/2 cup heavy cream

Combine the chocolate chips and heavy cream in a double boiler and stir until completely smooth and melted. Remove from heat and top each donut with desired amount of ganache. Add any desired sprinkles or decorations.