heart-healthy donut holes

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Our Valentine’s Days are pretty simple here.  A special breakfast, homemade valentines to exchange, and lots of red and white to cover the breakfast table.  Pretty simple and then the day moves on in a regular fashion until Bobby and I can have some time together.  Tonight: Indian takeout.

This morning I made healthy donut holes for the family.  They are simple and tiny which makes little hands excited to have multiples.  My recipe is adapted from Sally’s Baking Addiction version of a donut hole.  Here it goes:

heart-healthy donut holes

• 1/3 cup unsalted butter, softened
• 1/3 cup organic sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup skim milk
• 1  1/2 cups white whole wheat flour
• 1   1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 3/4 cup powdered sugar
• 1-2 tsp cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 400F. Spray mini muffin pan with cooking spray and set aside.
2. In a large bowl using a stand mixer, cream butter and sugar together on medium speed. Mix in the egg, vanilla extract, and milk. Gently stir in flour, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt. Don’t overmix – stir until just combined.
3. Spoon batter into prepared muffin tin – about 2/3 of the way full.  The batter should make exactly 20 mini muffins from the batter.
4. Bake for 11-12 minutes. They are done when the edges begin to brown and the centers are set. Allow muffins to cool only for a few minutes on the counter top.
5. While the muffins are cooling, pour the powdered sugar in a separate small bowl and add the tsp of cinnamon.   Mix.  Now coat all sides evenly with the powdered sugar/cinnamon mixture.
6. Put the powdered donut holes in festive mini muffin liners.

They are quite pretty when baked and rolled in powdered sugar.  And they are hearty little donut holes with all of the whole grain.  The girls loved them this morning and as expected, the whole pan of donut holes were consumed.

As always, in such Caroline fashion, Caroline just quickly made Rowan a valentine so he technically isn’t left out.  :)  Happy day.

the sleepy time gal