Baked Honey Cat Doughnuts – Recipe

Following my 2018 mini honey bundts, I decided to turn honey cake into something cute again for Jewish New Year this year. Cue baked honey cat doughnuts.

Need some visuals? Watch my making-of video on my YouTube channel, Tashcakes Cooks:

Ready? Let's go.

(Makes 10 doughnuts.)

Ingredients for Doughnuts:

115g unsalted butter
55g light muscovado sugar
55g honey
Pinch of salt
2 eggs
115g self-raising flour

Ingredients to Decorate:

300g yellow Candy Melts
20 whole almonds
Trex / vegetable shortening
Orange gel food colouring
50g dark chocolate

Method:

1. Preheat the oven to 180°C and lightly-grease your doughnut moulds (or not, if you're using silicone).

2. In a saucepan over a low heat, melt the butter, sugar, honey and salt together until smooth, stirring occasionally. Pour into a heatproof bowl and leave to cool for five to 10 minutes.

3. Once cool, stir in the eggs and the flour. Pour into the moulds only half-filling them, and bake for 12–15 minutes, or until puffy and golden.

4. Cool a little before turning out onto a cooling rack, and repeat with the rest of the batter. Leave your doughnuts to cool completely before decorating.

5. Melt the Candy Melts in a small heatproof bowl, either in the microwave or over a pan of simmering water. Then add the vegetable shortening a little at a time until the Melts have thinned to a pourable consistency.

6. Poke 'ear holes' into the top of the doughnuts with a knife, taking care not to go all the way through. Then dip the rounded ends of the almonds in the melted Candy Melts and push them into the holes you've made to create ears, making sure the pointy side end of the almonds are facing up.

6. Dip the doughnuts ear-side-down into the melted Candy Melts until half-covered, gently shake off the excess, and place back on your cooling rack to set. You can pop them in the fridge for 10 minutes to speed up the setting process.

7. Put a bit of your melted Candy Melts mixture into another bowl, and stir in the food colouring. Now using a toothpick, paint on the stripes on the 'foreheads' of the cats.

8. Now melt the dark chocolate using the same method as the Candy Melts, but without the shortening. Use a toothpick to paint on the cat faces, and then let set again.

Enjoy, and have fun.