Chocolate Buttermilk Donuts

A year ago for birthday, I got this donut maker. Up until last week, I had only used it two times because neither of the recipes I tried worked out and I gave up. Well I resurrected it again and decided to give it another go, and this recipe was a huge success! We loved these homemade, baked donuts. We especially loved them the next day chilled in the fridge.

This recipe makes 15-20 donuts. The most important step as I learned from my experience is to pipe the donuts using a ziploc bag. This gives them the donut look and makes it faster and easier to get the batter into the pan. Adapted from here.

Ingredients for batter
1 C flour
1/4 C cocoa
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1/2 C buttermilk
1/2 C brown sugar
1 egg
3 TB butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 C chocolate chips

Ingredients for glaze
1/2 C chocolate chips
2 TB butter
1 TB oil
1/4 tsp vanilla

Directions
Preheat oven to 325 degrees and spray the donut pan. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, cocoa, baking soda, and salt. In a second bowl, combine the buttermilk, brown sugar, egg, melted butter, and vanilla. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry and fold the ingredients together gently just until mixed. Fold in the chocolate chips.

Spoon the batter into a sandwich sized Ziploc bag. Cut off the corner (be careful not to cut the hole too big, you can always cut more if you need to). Pipe the batter into each donut space, filling about 2/3 full. Don't overfill or it won't get the donut look with the hole in the middle.

Bake for 7-10 minutes, or until a donut fluffs back up when you push on it gently with your finger.

To make the glaze, put all the ingredients in a small microwave safe bowl. Microwave until mostly melted, thenstir until it makes a smooth, chocolatey glaze. Dunk the top of the donuts in the warm glaze and sprinkle with sprinkles, if desired.