Unconventional donuts are one of the simple pleasures of life. I get to explore new flavor combinations with a relatively small commitment i.e. not a three tier cake. I’ve recently enjoyed maple bacon donuts and tres leches donuts, created a recipe for chocolate rye vanilla custard-filled “Dangerous Donuts,” and now here we have a new, pretty pink raspberry corn donut recipe. In theory this donut is for Valentine’s Day, though truth be told, the first two test batches had neither raspberries nor pink icing, and they were lovely in their simplicity. The bottom line is that you can have pink donuts any time of year, or tasty beige donuts on Valentine’s Day (omit the raspberries and icing), or use blue corn and blueberries.
For my third test batch, I made an icing with water, raspberry juice, and powdered sugar; and along with red corn flour, I used whole wheat flour instead of all purpose flour. That batch (photo below on the left) reminded me a bit too much of bran muffins and the icing was one-dimensional with no raspberry flavor. In the final version (photo below on the right), I added lemon juice to the icing, reverted to pairing the home-milled red cónico corn flour with all purpose flour, and added frozen raspberries to the batter.
That last batch was the winner: the donut has corn flavor and bright pops of fresh raspberry, the texture includes a bit of pericarp crackle and smooth dessertiness, and the sweet-tart icing adds flavor — not just decoration. (I contemplated adding sprinkles, but everything on the grocery shelves contained the recently banned red dye #3 and I don’t actually like the flavor or texture of sprinkles.)
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- Whole grain wheat and corn flours
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- Whole grain corn and all purpose flours plus raspberries
These baked donuts are a fresh combination of tasty ingredients, from the home-milled red corn flour to the icing that is tinted pink with raspberry juice. Try the recipe as is or make variations with different colored corn and other fruits like blueberries or strawberries.
Ingredients
Donuts
- 80 grams home-milled red cónico corn or storebought stoneground whole grain corn flour (1/2 cup + 1 Tbsp)
- 90 grams all purpose flour (2/3 cup + 1 Tbsp)
- 80 grams sugar (1/4 cup + 2.5 Tbsp)
- 9 grams baking powder (2 tsp)
- 3 grams salt (1/2 tsp)
- 150 grams milk (scant 2/3 cup)
- 40 grams oil, light olive or avocado (3 Tbsp)
- 1 egg
- 40 grams frozen or fresh raspberries, broken into smaller pieces (scant 1/2 cup)
Glaze
- 180 grams powdered sugar (1 1/2 cups)
- 20-28 grams lemon juice or water (1 1/2 – 2 Tbsp)
- 7-14 grams raspberry jam or raspberry juice from 5-10 raspberries pressed through a mesh colander to remove the seeds (1/2 – 1 Tbsp)
Instructions
- This recipe takes about 30 minutes from start to cooling rack. You want the donuts to be cooled before dipping them in the icing, so that requires another 20 minutes.
Donuts
- Lightly grease a donut baking pan and preheat your oven to 375°F.
- If you’re milling dried field corn at home, use a coarse setting on your mill for the first pass (a little more than halfway between the finest and the coarsest setting), and use the finest setting for the second pass.
- Whisk together the dry ingedients in a bowl (corn flour, all purpose flour, sugar, baking powder and salt) then add the milk, oil, and egg. Mix until just combined.
- Break the raspberries into smaller pieces and fold them into the batter.
- Spoon the batter into the donut pan.
- Bake for 13-15 minutes or until a toothpick poked into the thickest part of a donut comes out clean.
- Let the donuts cool in the pan for about 10 minutes then transfer them to a cooling rack.
Icing
- Mix the water or lemon juice with the powdered sugar until you have a thick icing with no lumps.
- To add pink color, prepare raspberry juice or use pre-made jam. For the former, warm 5-10 raspberries in the microwave for just a few seconds to soften them, then de-seed by pressing the juice through a mesh colander with a spoon.
- Add a small amount of the juice/jam and stir thoroughly. Continue adding until you’ve arrived at the shade of pink you prefer.
Topping the Donuts
- Once the donuts are cool, dip them in the icing and place them on a cooling rack over a baking sheet to drip and dry.
- Refrigerate or freeze the donuts after a day if they’re not all eaten — unless you skipped the raspberries in the batter, then they can be stored covered at room temperature for several days.
