The childhood (& teenage) obesity epidemic that ravaged my household was largely — get it??? ugh, you know it's been a long day when I'm already using puns in the first damn sentence of a post — due to one thing: donuts.
Although I spend the majority of my time frolicking throughout the beautiful city of New Orleans, I spend the other half in the small town of Covington, Louisiana. Even though I love it here, it's painfully boring at times. We have a movie theatre and a disgustingly dirty bowling alley, that's it. Newsflash: there's only so many times you can spend $15 dollars on popcorn and candy or torture yourself and your immune system by entering Tiffany Lanes. (Please read the Yelp reviews so you can accurately visualize how sad, run down, and dirty this place is.)
So what do we do? We eat.
But what if it's after 10 and we're hungry and we don't want to succumb to pink slime chicken nuggets or the grade-E meat at Taco Bell? We go to Butter Krisp Diner for a dozen hot glazed donuts. I used to be able to throw down a solid half dozen in like 10 minutes.
Just like the local bowling alley, Butter Krisp is pretty dingy and errs more on the strange side. Seriously, the place is plastered in Elvis photos, Betty Boop posters, and there are multiple TV screens that have Microsoft Powerpoint slideshows of the contents of their menu, but there's something so charming about it's bizarreness. Oh, and the donuts. They're amazing. Pretty much the best glazed donut ever (next to Shipley's of course).
Now that I actually care about what my body looks like, I try to stay away from eating a half dozen donuts at midnight once every couple of days. But I still crave them sometimes. Shit, I'm craving them right now. Considering that they're one of the culprits in my fat childhood, there is so much guilt attached to a box of these bad boys that it takes a lot to let me actually go out and get some. Instead, I make baked donuts.
My favorite thing about baked donuts is that they are stupidly simple to make and pretty much fail-proof. You can whip up a delicious donut batter before the oven has totally preheated. You can use these extra few minutes to clean up your workspace or scrape every last drop of batter out of the bowl and into your mouth. (Cleaning can wait.)
Plus, they're banoffee! If you've never had banoffee pie, you've truly missed out on one of Britain's greatest gifts to the world of sugar! If you can think of a better, more cloyingly sweet combination than banana, dulce de leche, toffee pieces, and whipped cream, please let me know ASAP.
Once your donuts are cool, top with homemade dulce de leche and tons of chopped up Heath bar pieces or banana slices. Or whipped cream. Or all of the above! Whatever you choose, you are sure to fall in love with these crazy moist donuts. Just imagine: banana bread baked into cute little rings, doused in caramel, and topped with all of that good stuff.
Delicious.
Banana Baked Donuts
makes six doughnuts; adapted from I Am A Food Blog.
- 1 cup flour
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/4 tsp. salt
- 3/4 tsp. ground cinnamon
- 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons sugar
- 1 egg, room temperature
- 1/2 cup mashed ripe banana
- 1/4 cup + 2 tablespoons buttermilk
- 1-1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
- 1/4 cup toffee pieces
Preheat oven to 400 F. Butter and flour a 6-count doughnut pan.
Sift together the dry ingredients in a medium bowl. Set aside. In a small bowl, whisk together the sugar, egg, banana, buttermilk, and vanilla. Add the wet ingredients into the dry and stir until just combined. Fold in toffee pieces.
Fill the pan about three-quarters full in each mold with the batter. Bake for 11 minutes and allow the donuts to cool completely before icing.
Dulce de Leche
- 1 14-oz. can of sweetened condensed milk
Dulce de Leche can be made using a variety of methods. Check out Baker Royale's amazing tutorial and pick your poison. I chose the oven method.
Top with plenty of chopped Heath bar pieces.