favor-“ette”: a donut tip

June 22, 2018/

So remember these donuts from last week?

Well guess what? I didn’t make the blueberry ones in a donut pan.

**gasps audibly**

Whenever I post a donut recipe – either here or for another site – one of the most frequently asked questions is, “I don’t have a donut pan – where can I find one?”.

And while the pan I use is readily available on Amazon (and I’m sure elsewhere), it recently occurred to me that not everyone makes donuts on the regular – justifying the purchase of a pan for such purpose.

**gasps audibly**

Once I recovered from this shocking revelation I set to work researching the several internet “hacks” for making donuts without an actual donut pan. I started with the most popular – which is placing a marble (or in my case, a marble-sized ball of tin foil) in the middle of each well of a standard muffin tin. You pipe or spoon the batter around it, and bake. And while this concept works great for making heart-shaped cupcakes (where the marble is on the outside of the liner):

It was a TOTAL FAIL when it came to making donuts. The batter baked up completely around the foil, which I then had to gently push out of each donut after they cooled. It was a mess that no amount of glaze could cover up.

But I kind of got the concept of creating a “center” for the batter to bake around. What I needed was something taller than the pan, so I shaped the foil into a cylinder. Perfect, except it wouldn’t stand by itself in the pan. So THEN I shaped the foil into a cylinder with a round-ish base for stability. Like this:

And lo and behold, it worked!

Obviously a muffin tin isn’t a “real” substitute for a donut pan. The diameter is smaller, and the wells are taller and tapered. But most of us have those tins on-hand, and they do create adorable, “donut-shaped” doughnuts, so give this a try and let me know what you think!

More doughnuts and kitchen tips on Pinterest, of course!