Delicious blueberry cake donuts, baked not fried!

Today, May 10th, is World Lupus Day and these donuts are the perfect accompaniment for today, since the international lupus colour is purple! Today is a pretty big deal to me because not only do I live with lupus every day, but awareness is extremely important to the cause. There is currently no cure for lupus and in the last 50 years there has only been one drug developed to treat lupus (which isn’t available in the UK) we just borrow drugs from cancer and arthritis treatments. For more drugs to be developed and better diagnosis we need more research and for that we need funding and for that we need people to actually know and care about this disease so they donate money and raise funds, and despite at least 5 million people having lupus worldwide (probably a conservative estimate since lupus can go undiagnosed for years) most people don’t know what it is. That’s why days like today are so important! Systemic Lupus Erythematosus (SLE) is the type I have and it’s an autoimmune illness that affects all parts of your body, the simplest way to explain it is your immune system attacking the healthy cells in your body (like your organs or joints). It is a debilitating disease that can be fatal. If you’d like to read up more on it please do so here and feel free to ask me any questions. If you have a few pennies spare and would like help further research and improve the lives of people with lupus you can donate here (UK) or here (US)

Thank you so much for reading that, now onto the fun part: Donuts!

Today is also Eurovision and I’m very excited about it! For those of you not in Europe, Eurovision is a song contest between a bunch of countries in Europe. Its weird and slightly politically passive aggressive but it’s a beloved tradition and most of Europe gets very into it. To get a feel of how weird and wonderful Eurovision is, watch Russia’s entry for 2012  below (it’s worth watching guys, just wait ’til you get to 1:32!) and no, this isn’t a one off crazy entry – this is the true essence of Eurovision!

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XOTBIJCAnKE]
So today’s post is also dedicated to Eurovision by being very American! There are few things I enjoy more than a blueberry cake donut from Dunkin’ Donuts, I could eat a mountain of them. Don’t give me the munchkins because I’ll eat two dozen in one sitting! Unfortunately, Dunkin’ Donuts are few and far between in the UK (probably more fortunately for my waistline and bank balance!). Naturally, I decided to make my own version at home!

I don’t really like blueberries by themselves, but put them in something and bake it? Yum! I don’t know why that is, but who am I to question the laws of yumminess? These donuts are great, they have a dense cake like texture to them and are bursting with juicy blueberries. They’re finished with a sweet and sticky blueberry glaze, I just drizzled mine on top but you could also dip them fully in it if you want them extra sweet!

I don’t know what they put in theirs at Dunkin’ Donuts or how they bake them, but I’m willing to bet these ones are much healthier! They have no butter in them and only a small amount of oil. They’re also baked, I don’t trust myself with a pot of hot oil (considering I fell down today and ripped part of my nail from it’s bed that was probably a good call!) which is one of the reasons I didn’t fry them. I used a donut pan to bake these, but if you don’t have one you can always use this recipe to make munchkins(a mini muffin pan would work great for that purpose!).

The secret to a great blueberry taste is orange, it really brings out the flavours of the blueberries and makes them extra yummy in anything! If you can, I would recommend making the glaze at least few hours ahead of baking so the blueberry flavour has time to develop with the orange.

This blueberry cake donut recipe is so easy to make and super yummy, I hope you enjoy them!

[recipe title=”Blueberry Cake Donuts” servings=”18-20″]

Ingredients

For the donuts:

• 190g plain flour
• 120g cast sugar
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/2 tsp bicarbonate of soda
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 egg, room temperature
• 180g 0% greek yogurt
• 3 tbs milk
• 80ml vegetable oil
• 1/2 tsp vanilla extract
• zest of one orange
• 300g fresh blueberries

For the glaze

• 80g fresh blueberries
• juice from 1/2 orange
• 250g icing sugar

Method

• Preheat the oven to 180C/350F and lightly grease your donut pan
• Put the flour, sugar, baking powder, bicarb and salt in a bowl. Lightly mix with a balloon whisk to air out and remove lumps*
• Put the greek yogurt, oil, egg, milk and zest in a bowl and whisk to combine. Gradually add the dry ingredients, whisking to combine and remove lumps.
• Once all combined, fold in the blueberries until evenly distributed
• Spoon the mixture into a piping bag and snip of the end (if you don’t have any piping bags, a zip lock bag will work fine) and pipe the mixture into the donut moulds.
• Bake for 16-20 minutes, until the tops are a dark golden colour. Cool in the pan for 5 minutes before turning out onto a wire rack to cool completely
• To make the glaze, puree the blueberries in a food processor and add the orange juice, combine. Add the icing sugar a few spoons at a time and process until it’s all combined. Spoon the glaze over the top of the donuts and leave to dry on wire rack for 10 minutes – the glaze will stay sticky.

Notes:

• *This is the cheats way of avoiding sifting! I like to dirty as few items as possible so I tend to use this method quite often!
• Store in an airtight container for 3-5 days
• I wouldn’t recommend using defrosted frozen blueberries as they’ll have too much moisture

[/recipe]