Donuts = Love

Not long ago, one of our girls mentioned that the grandkids —including the baby who is not yet two, had taken to equating donuts with love. Well now, as y’all all know, any grandparent worth one’s salt is going to tuck such information away for some future memory-making, glorious day —and so it was with me.

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Baking Day with Grammie

Sure enough, it soon came time for a couple of these children to spend a few days with us. Inspired by a recent batch of delightfully perfect Sour Cream Baked Donuts that I baked for The Metamora Inn, I decided the girls and I would create and bake something similar with chocolate. And just like that, a delicious batch of Triple Chocolate Sour Cream Baked Donuts was born!

If you happen to decide this is a great project to share with some special Littles in your life, be sure and pick a day you have a good measure of extra patience lying around and count on using a good bit of it. The hair loss you’re likely to (secretly!) experience will come back to you in droves of hugs and kisses and literal BUCKETS of eye-twinkling “I love you’s” —not to mention the fondest of memories your dear Sweethearts are sure to carry throughout their lives. A fair trade, by my estimation, but I digress.

A Piece of Cake

Moist, rich, and chocolatey delicious, these triple chocolate baked and frosted donuts are too good not to share! The recipe, contrary to what it may sound, is relatively easy. Once you have your donut baking pans squared away, these donuts are no more complicated to make than a standard muffin —may be easier! The patience, tongue in cheek mentioned above, was merely spent on matching cup for cup, spoon for spoon, giving both girls an equal “my turn” experience at baking with Grammie —not a problem.

Details

Perhaps you’ve heard of this before, but baking with chocolate can present a risky endeavor when inspired by cakes that arent originally chocolate. Because of this tiny yet demanding detail, I’ve added a few extra moistening ingredients that I didn’t use in my original Sour Cream Baked Donuts.

Like every donut, these sweet treats are best served within hours of baking —so I don’t advise baking an abundance (a rare recommendation as you know). Easily halve the recipe if your event doesn’t call for a full dozen. That being said, a few leftover donuts covered airtight and served the next day won’t be anything to sniff at —they just won’t be their peak best.

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Triple Chocolate Sour Cream Baked Donuts

Moist, rich, and chocolatey delicious, these triple chocolate baked and frosted donuts are too good not to share!

Prep Time 15 minutes

Cook Time 11 minutes

Total Time 26 minutes

Servings 12 Donuts

Ingredients

Cake Donuts

• 1 cup Sour Cream
• 3 Tablespoons Butter very soft
• 2 large Eggs
• 1 1/4 cup Granulated Sugar
• 1/4 cup Whole Milk
• 2 1/4 teaspoons Real Vanilla
• 1/2 cup Vegetable Oil
• 1 3/4 cups All-purpose Flour
• 1/2 cup Unsweetened Cocoa Powder
• 3/4 teaspoon Baking Powder
• 1/2 teaspoon Baking Soda
• 1/3 teaspoon Ground Cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon + 1 pinch Kosher Salt
• 1 cup Mini Chocolate Chips [Do not use regular-sized Chocolate Chips. They are too large for donuts.]

Icing

• 1/3 cup Sour Cream
• 1/4 cup Heavy Cream
• 1 1/2 cup Powdered Sugar sifted
• 1/4 cup Cocoa sifted
• Baking Sprinkles or Sliced Almonds *optional

Instructions

1. Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Prepare the donut pans -very well coated with pan spray and set them aside. Gather all the ingredients. Whisk together sour cream, very soft butter, eggs, and sugar until light and fluffy. Now add the milk, vanilla, and oil. Mix well.
   
2. Sift together flour, cocoa, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, and salt in a separate bowl.
   
3. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and fold them all together until just mixed. Fold in mini chocolate chips.
   
4. 
5. Add the prepared batter to a gallon-sized plastic zip bag removing as much air from the bag as possible. Cut an approximate half-inch corner off of the bottom of the bag.
   
6. Pipe batter equally into the donut forms. Bake at 350 degrees for 11 minutes. Lightly touch a donut or two to test doneness -if the donut springs back, they are done. If not, give them another minute or two, max, as donuts overbake very quickly. Remove donuts from the oven when baked.
   
7. Allow donuts to rest a couple of minutes in the pan. Gently run a thin rubber spatula around the outer edge of the donuts to be sure they will release easily from the pan. Line an area of your workspace to catch drippy icing and sprinkles. Place a cooling rack upside down on the donuts and flip the pan over -releasing the donuts onto the rack.
   
8. While the donuts cool, mix the icing sour cream and whipping cream together until thickened. Fold in presifted powder sugar, and cocoa together until well blended and smooth.
   
9. While still only slightly warm, carefully dip the top side of each donut into the icing -half to two-thirds of the way in.
   
10. Add sprinkles or sliced nuts if using. Serve the donuts immediately or allow the icing to set up to an hour and then serve. Chocolatey delicious!
    

Enjoy!

*Interested in a slightly easier sweet treat to make with kids? Check out this post.