These mini donuts are made with a simple vanilla cinnamon cake-like batter and tossed in a cinnamon sugar mixture. These are so cute and so fun to make!
Preheat an oven to 180c (350f) and prep a mini donut pan on the side. Into a big mixing bowl, add the buttermilk, eggs, vegetable oil, and vanilla extract and mix until well combined.
Then add the flour, baking powder, baking soda, kosher salt, sugar, and cinnamon, and mix with a whisk until combined. Fold lightly with a spatula until the mixture is just combined and you can't see big lumps of flour.
Transfer the batter into a piping bag and cut a small hole in the tip of the bag. Butter the donut pan with room temperature butter and pipe the batter into the donut pan ¾ way full.
Bake in a 180c (350f) preheated oven for 7-9 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into the donuts comes out clean.
Remove the baking pan from the oven and let it cool for 5 minutes. Then remove it from the pan.
Make the cinnamon sugar
In a small mixing bowl, add the granulated sugar and the cinnamon and mix well until combined.
Assembly
Dip the donuts in the cinnamon sugar while they're warm, and place them on a cooling rack.
Notes
Use room temperature ingredients. It is important that you use room-temperature ingredients like eggs and buttermilk. This step ensures that your mixture mixes into a homogenous mixture and bakes perfectly. you don’t want to place cold batter into the oven.
Measure your flour correctly! When measuring your flour, avoid scooping it with a measuring cup. Instead, stir the flour with a spoon to create as many air pockets as possible, and spoon it into your measuring cup. Finally, level it with a back of a knife.
Don’t overmix the batter, you don’t want to develop the gluten in the flour. This step ensures you have a moist donut and not a dense and dry donut.
Be patient! I know it’s extremely tempting to frost this donut as it is pulled out of the oven, but let the donut cool for at least 5-10 minutes so it will be more firm and won’t crumble up, and prevent the frosting from melting.
We highly recommend using a piping bag to pipe the batter into the donut pan. This way your donuts will turn out perfect.
Before you start to make this recipe, measure and prepare your ingredients so the cooking process will go smoothly and easily.