Banana Bread Donuts

Yummy note: This is a perfect little breakfast, or snack day or night for us. It can be easily adapted to make dairy-free and nut-free which is so nice, as it is hard to find any commercially-prepared donuts that don't have dairy in them. My youngest loves these donuts, and my oldest really likes chocolate chip banana bread, so it was a nice compromise for the two. :) Not to mention, we like to always have these donuts in a hidden freezer stash for us to enjoy. It makes a perfect cold, frozen treat for those little ones when they are having a bad day, especially if they are teething and want something to chomp on that doesn't involve lots of sugar! Besides these donuts being wonderful right out of the freezer, they stay very moist for several days after baking them. My daughter helped me do a lot of the photos for this post, she is getting to be a pretty good little photographer for only 6 :)  Way to hold the camera and for having a good eye, Alicia. 

Banana Bread Donuts

I was inspired to make these by these two recipes:

http://itsyummytomytummy.blogspot.com/2010/04/banana-bread.html

http://www.barbarabakes.com/2012/11/banana-bread-cinnamon-chip-donuts/

Ingredients:

1 cup mashed bananas (about 3 small ones) (the browner the bananas the better)
1/2 cup sugar
1/2 cup yogurt (use a soy yogurt to make these dairy-free)
1/4 cup butter, melted (use a dairy-free alternative butter, or canola oil works) 
2 eggs
1 tsp vanilla
2 cups flour (use regular all-purpose and whole wheat flour)
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
1 cup chocolate chips, optional Note: Other optional ingredients is to add chopped nuts or even cinnamon chips to your batter before baking. Finishing ingredients: cinnamon/sugar for dusting, or a glaze using chocolate or vanilla frosting

My helper in the kitchen.. 

Directions:
Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Lightly grease/spray donut pans. In a mixing bowl, combine bananas, sugar, yogurt, vanilla, melted butter, and eggs. Next, pour in flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Mix until the batter is incorporated. Add in optional chocolate chips or nuts at this point.

For ease of filling the donut pans, do yourself a favor and put the batter into a plastic baggie and cut the corner to eliminate lots of mess. Fill the donut pans about 1/2 to 3/4 full.

The pictures in this above collage were all taken by my 6 year old daughter, Alicia.  Note, I only had to recrop one of her pictures  above of the donut batter, the rest are Alicia's work!

Bake in the 325 degree oven for about 8-9 minutes for the small donuts, and about 10-11 minutes for the larger-sized donuts. Once donuts are done, cool them for a few minutes in the pan, but then remove them from the pan quickly before they get too hard to remove them. Toss with cinnamon/sugar coating or glaze with your choice of a simple frosting/glaze. This recipe makes atleast a dozen or so large donuts, plus a pan or so of little donuts. We like to use both sizes; the little donuts makes great little snacks for the kids.