Happy National Donut Day!

Not to be confused with National Doughnut Day, which is apparently in November.  Hey, the more days we spend celebrating donuts ... or doughnuts ... the better, right?  Unfortunately, it's a rare opportunity that I get to enjoy a donut since becoming vegan (unless I get out to San Fran to hit up Pepples).

 

So what option did I have on National Donut Day but to try my hand at making my own donuts at home.  I've never made my own donuts before, but I saw this recipe on Chocolate Covered Katie recently and it looked so good I thought I just had to try it.  I originally thought that at just 34 calories per donut (calculations by Katie), how far wrong could I go?  Well, after actually making my version, I decided to put everything into the MyFitnessPal recipe nutrition calculator and got 89 calories per donut ... significantly more.  Whomp whomp.  I'm guessing the big difference was that I went ahead and used real sugar rather than a substitute.  My milk of choice was also soy (had it on hand), which is higher in calories than some alternatives.  By halving the ingredients listed listed for the chocolate topping, I got the total down to 72 calories per donut and still felt like I had a decent amount of chocolate coating.  It seemed like a good compromise. 

I don't own a donut pan, so I opted to make donut holes rather than your traditional-looking donut.  Well, even the donut hole plan didn't exactly work out ...  I used a mini muffin pan so, surprise surprise!, what I ended up with was chocolate coated mini muffins.  Fortunately the still tasted pretty good.  But there's really no illusion that these are donuts.  A cake donut that isn't shaped like a donut is ... guess what? ... cake.  So it seems like if I really want to celebrate National Donut Day again (or National Doughnut Day in November), it seems I'll need to get myself one of these.  Or just head back to Pepples ...