Baked chocolate donut holes are hiding a boozy Guinness secret! Covered in a vanilla-Guinness glaze.
I’m back from my winter hibernation…and just in time to share a St Patrick’s Day worthy recipe!
Well, if I’d really been hibernating then now clearly isn’t the time to come out. Because it’s still freaking cold. Yes, FREAKING cold, not just cold. All week, my iPhone weather app has actually said ‘frigid’.
This year I especially notice this cold weather, because I am at home with a baby. I am dying to get out for a walk around the block.
We have already walked around the mall 8000 times. At this point we have read every kid’s book in my house 16000 times. Even the baby has cabin fever!
Well. Something good has finally come from that cabin fever.
I got my butt in gear, made a visual recipe index for this blog, culled off some of my weaker dishes (to be re-made and re-photographed in the not-so-distant future), and tweaked the design a bit.
Oh! And I made donut holes!
This is my first time making donut holes.
I love me some donuts, but find the serving size is too big for me. I much prefer the size of these guys, although be warned: one is not enough.
I feel kind of funny calling them donut holes because they are made in mini muffin tins. So doesn’t that make them mini-cupcakes? But in reality, they have a verrrry similar flavor/texture to something you’d get at Tim Horton’s. So…donut holes they are.
I used a very similar recipe to my triple chocolate zucchini donuts, but wanted to get away from using cake flour…since not everyone just has cake flour lying around their homes. And let’s face it, you’re not trekking out to the grocery store to get cake flour. Not in this weather.
So, I used a combination of all purpose and whole wheat, but at first they were soooo dry. After a few batches what I ended up with was reducing the baking temperature, upping the moisture content with more milk and some greek yogurt. The resulting donut holes are moist and chocolatey…with a subtle hint of Guinness. YUM.
They are not super sweet. That is where the glaze comes in.
Donuts just aren’t donuts without a glaze.
This glaze uses some of the left-over Guinness. (Please note: there will be more than half a can of Guinness left-over. You could make a triple batch of these guys. Or, you could always…I don’t know…drink it.)
I let the donuts sit for about an hour after dunking them in the glaze so that it hardened ever so slightly. So when you bite the donut holes it kind of crinkles…yummy.
Whatever you do, don’t leave out the glaze.
So here you have it, moist, chocolatey, Guinnessy donut holes with crinkly sweet glaze. Baked, not fried, and ready in 30 minutes from start to finish.
- 1 cup all purpose flour (*125g or fluffed, spooned & leveled)
- 1 cup whole wheat flour (*125g or fluffed, spooned & leveled)
- ½ cup cocoa powder
- 1 cup granulated sugar
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- ½ cup Guinness or other stout
- ½ cup milk (any % or almond milk can be used)
- 2 eggs
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- ¼ cup greek yogurt
- 2 tablespoons butter (melted)
- 1 cup powdered sugar (125g)
- 1 teaspoon vanilla
- 2 tablespoons Guinness or other stout
- Pre-heat oven to 350 F.
- Combine all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Combine all wet ingredients in a separate bowl; whisk until smooth. Add wet ingredients to dry and stir until just combined (do not over-mix).
- Spray mini muffin pan with spray oil. Fill each hole to ⅔ - ¾ full. Bake for 8-12 minutes until a toothpick comes out clean. Cool 5-10 minutes in pan, then transfer to a wire rack to finish cooling.
- Combine all glaze ingredients in a medium bowl; beat until completely combined
- To glaze, you can either dunk the tops or completely submerge. You will need to repeat the glazing process a few times if you completely submerge.
These can easily be converted into cupcakes or regular sized donuts, but you will need to alter the baking time.
Jessica, your comment made my day 🙂 It is hard to keep the blog going with a baby, but now that he’s 5 months old, I’ve decided to renew my efforts! It is nice to have a creative outlet. Thanks so much 🙂
they look yummy!
Thanks, Dina, they disappeared way too quickly 🙁
I’ll have to try this recipe.
These looked great! Unfortunately, they didn’t work out too well for me. The icing was just runny and sticky and didn’t want to stay on the donuts, and the texture/consistency of the donuts was all wrong. Not sure what I did wrong but I’m throwing them out. 🙁
Hi Emily! I’m sorry you didn’t like the donut holes! I found that with the glaze you had to be really exact with the liquids or it would end up too runny and run off. One question: did you weigh your flour? I find that scooping and levelling gives much more flour than fluffing, spooning and levelling (which was the weight I gave).
Thanks for the response! I didn’t weigh it, but I used a fluffy scoop of flour for both the flours in the recipe and both were on the scant side. The donuts just ended up being really dense, yet dry. Very odd. I just didn’t know if you had any idea where I went wrong. I have a cinnamon nutmeg donut recipe that always work well for us so I’d love to find the perfect chocolate donut recipe. 🙂
Hey Emily! So I just whipped up a batch to make sure I didn’t make any mistakes in writing the recipe out, and mine turned out the same as before, fluffy and moist (but cake-like). So I have a few suggestions (total guesses, really) as to what may have gone wrong: 1) it is possible that you had too much flour 2) maybe your baking powder expired (since your’s were dense?) 3) if your Guinness bubbled too much when you measured it, maybe you didn’t have a full 1/2 cup? Again, these are total guesses…but I’m sorry they didn’t work out for you!
Wow, thank you for testing it out! That’s above and beyond! My baking powder IS about a month past expiration, now that you mention it– I wonder if that is the culprit after all. Thank you!
What would you recommend if you don’t want to use the beer?
Hi Crissy! I’d swap it with milk. Hope you like them 🙂