baked sweet potato doughnuts

I made you breakfast! Delicious, yummy, puffy, bready goodness. Made from scratch, and even a little healthy. 🙂 Definitely healthier than the donut shop doughnuts you can buy down the street! My most sincere apologies for being the busiest person ever and not having very much time to post... but I made these and I HAD TO SHARE. Like, immediately. I made you baked (!) sweet potato (!!) doughnuts! They may sound a little strange, but I promise you they're the most perfect donuts you've ever tasted. Ever ever ever. Tell me, does this picture make your mouth water or what?

These are surprisingly easy! I know yeast-based recipes are scary for everyone (me included), but these donuts are so worth taking the risk. They are... light but rich, and like delicious clouds of non-greasy sugary goodness. What drew me into this recipe was the fact that these donuts are baked instead of fried! For me, frying is scary, and frying is unhealthy. And besides, I'm the Baking fairy, not the frying fairy 😉 I think that is something that makes these treats even easier. No oil, no keeping up with the temperature and watching out for oil spatters or any of that mess. Just stick em in the oven, and they're ready in ten minutes flat. DONE. 

The original recipe only had cinnamon-sugar topped doughnuts, but I think by now, we all know that if it's not chocolate, it doesn't fly in this household... so I made half topped with cinnamon-sugar, and half got a thick drizzle of deep dark melted chocolate. Yum! Sweet potato and chocolate are secretly a great match, kinda like pumpkin and chocolate. Weird, but good to know! This might seem like a bit of an autumnal recipe, but psshh. I don't know about you guys, but that's never stopped me from making anything. Make these RIGHT NOW. You will be so glad you did. P.S. a big thank you to Pinterest for showing me this great recipe 🙂 Are you on Pinterest too? Follow me! I have a link up on the sidebar at the right. Happy Sunday!!

Baked Sweet Potato Doughnuts
Adapted from Leanne Bakes
Yields: 14 doughnuts plus some doughnut holes

for the dough
1 cup mashed sweet potatoes (2 medium sweet potatoes should be enough)
3 tablespoon unsalted butter
½ cup whole milk
2 ½ teaspoon active dry yeast (this is NOT instant, so if you use instant, use a little less!)
½ cup white sugar
½ cup packed light brown sugar
1 teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon ground nutmeg
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
1 egg
2 egg yolks
3 ½ cups white all-purpose flour, plus more for rolling

for the toppings
cinnamon sugar
melted butter
about ½ cup dark chocolate chips + a few tablespoon unsalted butter, melted (I eyeballed this, so not very precise measurements)

to make the dough:
Take your two sweet potatoes and scrub them well under running water. Dry them, then prick all over with a fork. Set on a paper towel, and microwave for about 8 minutes. They will be super super hot! Let them cool for a few minutes, then cut them open and scoop out the flesh into a small bowl. Mash with a fork, then set aside for now. Melt your butter in a small bowl, and let cool. 
Measure out ½ cup of whole milk, and heat it to around 105F for your yeast. Add the yeast, and let it sit for 5-10 minutes. It's okay if it doesn't bubble much, mine didn't! Add the yeast/milk mixture to the bowl of a stand mixer fitted with the whisk attackment. Mix lightly, then add the sugars, salt, vanilla, and nutmeg, and whisk to combine. Then, add in the sweet potatoes, butter, egg, and egg yolks, and beat until combined. The sweet potatoes will cause little lumps, so try to beat most of those out! Switch the attachment to the dough hook, and add in the flour. Start slowly (unless you want to cover your kitchen in flour), then once all the flour is mixed in, beat at medium for 2 minutes. Then crank up the power to medium-high for 5-7 minutes until the dough starts forming a ball and pulling away from the sides. If this does not happen, add more flour. I personally had to add at-least an extra ½ cup for it to stop being gooey! Dump the dough out onto a floured counted, and knead for a couple minutes. Then, grab a large bowl, spray with nonstick spray, and place the dough inside. Cut an x on top with a knife, and cover the dough with a tea towel. What I do is I put the bowl of dough inside the microwave and heat it up for about 10-15 seconds. Then I leave it in there to rise for a few hours! That way the yeast has a warm, draft-free environment to rise. 🙂 Let your dough rise for at lest 2 hours. 
After the first rise, dump your dough onto a floured counted, and knead a bit. Using a floured rolling pin, roll your dough out to about ¾ inch thick. Use a circle cutter (or donut cutter if you have one) and cut out as many doughnuts as you can! I used a regular circle cutter, and an apple corer to cut out the donut holes.. haha! Place your doughnuts on 2 parchment-lined baking sheets. I fit 7 per pan, plus a few donut holes. Also, because my doughnut holes were so small, I combined 3 cut-outs to make one doughnut hole! Re-knead the scraps, and cut out donuts til you can't anymore. Then just roll out little doughnut holes. Now, you must let the dough rise again, for at least two hours. I put mine in a cold oven and let them rise all night, so they were huge by the morning! But do whatever you want. 🙂
After the second rise, take the donuts out of the oven (if that's where you put them), place the oven rack in the center, and heat the oven to 400F. Mine runs hot, so I did about 380F. Bake one pan at a time. Big donuts will take 10-12 minutes, while donut holes take about 5-6 minutes. The top will get light brown and delicious! When ready, immediately take out of the oven and put the other pan in. While you let the donuts cool a little, make the toppings.

to make the toppings:
In a medium bowl, mix together about ½ cup of white sugar with some cinnamon. Mix well! In a separate medium bowl, melt some butter.
To make the chocolate drizzle, here is what I did... I melted about ½ cup of dark chocolate chips with a pat of butter til smooth. Then, since it was very thick, I added some very very hot water. I have gotten comments before where people were like "Don't add water to chocolate! It will seize up!" Well, keep reading. The chocolate WILL seize up, and get very thick. Add more water and stir until it becomes smooth again. You now have a chocolate glaze drizzle that will not harden and become gross like the donut shop chocolate glaze! It's probably not ideal if you need to transport these, but just for home, it works great. I personally think it's gross that the storebought chocolate-glaze donuts get real hard on the top and have that oily residue stuff under. This glaze does not get this way. BUT, you do not have to do it my way. 🙂

put it all together!
Once the doughnuts have cooled a little (but are still warm), top them! Dip the tops in butter, then cinnamon sugar. Or, put your chocolate glaze in a sandwich ziploc baggie, snip the corner, and drizzle the tops. I came out with 14 donuts, so I did 7 of each kind. Eat while warm, and die a little inside because they are just.that.good. Enjoy! 🙂