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I hope quarantine and isolation are going well for everyone. If it isn’t, here is something to brighten your day and delight your tastebuds: Key Lime Pie Doughnuts. Seriously, these are life changing. I am very grateful that I have a backyard for the kids to play in, warm weather to enjoy, sunshine streaming in my windows for my houseplants, a healthy family…and these KEY LIME PIE DONUTS! Things could certainly be better, but they could absolutely be worse. So, I am feeling very blessed and thankful these days, and juicing a lot of key limes!
Like most everybody, I have been doing a fair amount of baking. I wouldn’t say I’ve done more baking than typical, but I am trying to dust off the unique baking pans and gizmos and gadgets that don’t get used quite so often. My next challenge is going to be cannoli—I have these little cone shaped cannoli forms that I have never used, and the last time I ate one was in Little Italy in New York City 5 years ago. Time to recreate those delicious memories (…stay tuned for a blog post)!
Anybody who knows me knows I absolutely adore Key Limes. I squeeze them in my carbonated water everyday, with a little added mint from my garden, too–easy virgin mojito! I am also a huge key lime pie fan. Remember that lady in Dexter who was on her deathbed and just wanted to taste the best key lime pie of her life? That’s me, right there. Every birthday I request it, I am not a cake girl whatsoever. So, when a friend posted a picture of some key lime pie donuts on Instagram, I had to find a recipe, immediately! Never in my life had I even considered making a key lime pie donut!
I didn’t have to search hard to find the most amazing recipe. This came from Danielle at LiveWellBakeOften.com and it was unbelievably good, by far my BEST quarantine baked treat to date! I baked them in time to share with some friends—I placed the plate of donuts half way into the yard as they waited on the sidewalk, then I retreated back to my front door as they grabbed them and gobbled them up. Not the ideal way to see friends or share baking, but still something pretty special and a memory I will cherish of connecting with dear friends within this chaos.
Key Lime Pie Donuts, where have you been all my life?!
Baked Key Lime Pie Donuts from Danielle at livewellbakeoften.com
Donut Ingredients:
1 cup leveled all purpose flour
1 tsp baking powder
0.25 tsp salt
0.33 cup Greek Yogurt (I just used regular unflavoured 2% yogurt)
0.33 cup + 1 tbsp granulated sugar
2 tbsp fresh key lime juice—but zest them first! This takes a LOT of key limes, expect to juice at least 8 of the little guys, and you’ll need even more for the glaze below.
1 tsp key lime zest
2 tbsp melted and slightly cooled unsalted butter
1 large egg
1 tsp vanilla
Glaze Ingredients:
1 cup icing sugar
2-3 tbsp fresh key lime juice (I ran out of key limes and ended up using just a little milk to get to the right consistency, it tasted just fine!)
Crushed graham crackers
Directions:
one: preheat the oven to 350 F and spray your donut pan with non-stick spray. In a large bowl, mix together the flour, baking powder and salt.
two: in a separate bowl, mix together the yogurt, sugar, key lime juice and zest, melted butter, egg and vanilla until very well combined. Add the dry ingredients into these wet ingredients and mix until just combined.
three: fill a piping bag with the batter, cut off the tip, and carefully piped the dough into the pan about two thirds full. I used a 6 donut pan, and doubled the recipe, so it took a little while before I finished making these guys. On her website, Danielle says this recipe yields 8 donuts, but I doubled the recipe at got almost 30, so perhaps my donut mold was smaller or I filled them a little less than she did.
four: bake for about 10 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean and the tops are just a little bit golden. OR…you can try my technique of faking a deep fried donut in the ActiFry! I didn’t try it this time, but I plan to the next time I make these! Allow to cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then remove and cool on a wire rack completely before glazing.
five: for the glaze, simply combine the key lime juice slowly to the icing sugar until you get a thick, yet runny consistency. I ran out of key limes so ended up using just a little bit of milk to thin it out, and it tasted just fine, still very key limey! You want it to be thin enough to cover the whole donut top when you dunk it, but not so thin that it runs down the edges and make a big mess—it should thickly slide down the edges then firm up on the sides. I dunked the donut directly into the glaze and gave it a swirl to really coat it, put it back onto the wire rack and sprinkled with the graham cracker crumbs, then let it dry for a few minutes before serving and completely devouring.
note: if you’re not going to eat them right away, they are still amazingly delicious the next day, HOWEVER the graham crumbs will get soggy if you keep them in an air tight container. So, you may want to wait on doing the glaze and graham cracker crumbs until the day you are serving them. I did not do this and the day two donut graham crumbs were moist—so, I left them on the counter overnight and they dried out a bit. But I wouldn’t plan to do it that way, fresh was best!
I hope you enjoy these as much as we did, these are definitely a new staple in our house! Comment below what crazy and unusual baking I should add to the quarantine baking list, and if you have a great cannoli recipe please share it!
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turquoise toffee 