The Sweet Stuff: Donut Cake

I love Williams Sonoma. I have a tendancy to buy a lot form their sale/clearance page on their site, and in store. So when I saw their Giant Donut Cake Pan on sale, of course it was added to the cart! They don't have it available anymore, but you can look for one on Amazon- they have a bunch!

Who doesn't like a huge donut?

Here's the thing. You are supposed to make both halves and then sandwich them on top of each other to make a round donut. Well, the thing was huge! I know cake donuts from Dunkin Donuts are round all the way around, but I don't care! That thing was really giant. I figured that two donuts would work out better anyways since it was for a kid's birthday party.

So I prefer a chocolate cake donut over the plain cake donut, so I made this one chocolate. It was not extremely chocolately, which worked, but I wouldn't have minded more chocolate too. But it did have a nice light chocolate flavor.

The cake itself was surprisingly not like a cake donut, you know, dry. This was soft and had a delicate crumb.

I have to admit I was being super lazy for the glaze. Super lazy. I used the Duncan Hines Glaze, vanilla flavor. It was soooo simple and easy to use. I had MORE than enough for both cakes. I'm sure I could have found more than enough easy to make glazes, but I was amking a lot that day, so I went with even more simple. Pre-made ;)

I will definitely be making this again and I am not afraid to use the glaze again either! :)

Ingredients:

3 cups all purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1 cup cocoa powder

1 1/2 tsp salt

1 1/3 cups milk

1 1/2 tsp vanilla extract

2 sticks butter

2 cups granulated sugar

4 eggs, lightly beaten

All ingredients should be at room temp.

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Grease and flour both halves of the donut pan.

Sift together the flour, baking powder, cocoa powder and salt.

In a small bowl, combine the milk and vanilla. Set aside.

In the bowl of an electric mixer with a flat beater, beat the butter on medium speed until creamy and smooth, about 30 seconds. Add the sugar and continue beating until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes, stopped the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl. Add the eggs a little at a time, beating well after each addition.

Reduce speed to low and add the flour mixture in three additions, alternating with the milk mixture and beginning and ending with the flour. Beat each addition until just incorporated, stopping the mixer occasionally to scrape down the sides of the bowl.

Divide the batter b/w the greased pans. Tap the pans on the countertop to eliminate any air bubbles. Spread the batter up the sides of each pan so the sides are higher than the center. Bake until the cakes begin to pull away from the sides of the pans and a toothpick inserted unto the center comes out clean, 40-45 minutes. Transfer the pans to a wire rack and let the cakes cool in the pans for 15 minutes.

Set the rack over the cakes, invert the pans onto the rack and lift off the pans. Let the cakes cool completely, at least 2 hours, before assembling and decorating.

Once you are ready to assemble, flip one cake, round side down. The other cake will go right over that onecut side down (of course). Or you can do as I did and place the cut side down of both cakes on a cake plate and decorate both. :)

Then pour the glaze over top.