Baked ‘Stollen’ Doughnuts

First of all I thought it was only fair, and right, and proper, that doughnuts got a look in on this Christmas malarky.

Every other baked good seems to be able to get it’s tinsel on, but so far (please correct me if I am wrong) I have yet to see a festive doughnut . . . until now!

The flavours here are subtle – dried fruit, lemon zest and little nuggets of marzipan nestled in a simple cake.

I wanted to stay as true to an original Stollen as possible. It was tempting to throw in a little bit of spice – such as cinnamon, ground cloves, mixed spice etc – but none of the Stollen recipes I consulted used such things.

The cake itself is dense and almost doughy without being heavy at all. Almost like a fried doughnut, but without the crispy outer.

I added in some white teff flour as it seems to be one of the flours I reach for most at the moment (white teff is much milder in flavour than the brown version and therefore I feel it is more versatile), however if you don’t have any then buckwheat or sorghum would be great alternatives, or you could just use more rice flour (although I am not sure exactly how that would affect the texture). I would avoid any flour that is really strongly flavoured – like chickpea – the flavours are delicate and I always find that you need strong flavours to overpower the bean flour flavour that has a tendency to linger.

I love the fact that every mouthful is different and I think these are a great alternative to the bread based version.

If you don’t have a doughnut pan the batter would be equally as delicious baked in cupcake form – mini or otherwise!