Coffee Toffee Baked Donuts

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These donuts are such a treat! Coffee lover or not, you're going to want to try these. It's really a simple baked vanilla cake donut recipe, with a touch of concentrated coffee added into the batter. This recipe also uses buttermilk, which helps to keep the donuts moist and not too sweet.

They then get dipped in a coffee glaze, and sprinkled with buttery, caramelized homemade toffee pieces. You can't go wrong with one of these in the morning!

I put this recipe together after I saw the Coffee Toffee Donuts being sold at Evanilla, the best donut place in my hometown at the Broad Street Market! This is my attempt to honor their delicious flavor combination with a baked version.

To make this recipe, the baking order goes: toffee, donut, glaze, toffee (again). That's how I'll take you through this post.

This is just a plain, standard toffee recipe. Simply add unsalted butter, sugar and water to a saucepan over medium heat and stir it every 30 seconds with a rubber spatula.

The mixture will start to bubble and slowly change color from blond to a light caramelized brown. Heat the caramel to 300℉/149℃ on a candy thermometer. You should really have one of these thermometers, as a digital thermometer with any plastic can potentially melt in this scenario (but you should still also have a digital thermometer).

Pour the toffee into a small metal loaf pan or another metal pan. You want the toffee layer to be between ⅛"-¼" thick. Place the pan in the fridge (uncovered) and chill until the toffee is completely firm.

Next, you'll make the coffee batter and bake the donuts. Here's what you'll need:

• Donut pan. I use the one linked, which was recommended to me by Kayla at Broken Oven Baking and I love it. It's a bit deeper than some metal donut pans and I like the extra depth!
• All-purpose flour.
• Kosher salt.
• Granulated sugar.
• Baking powder. Used as a leavener to produce a nice rise. This leavening agent is used instead of yeast (as in a brioche donut).
• Unsalted butter. Melted and slightly cooled.
• Instant coffee. Just a teaspoon.
• Large eggs. Two of them. Room temperature!
• Buttermilk. Also room temperature!
• Vanilla paste or extract.

Start by whisking together the flour, sugar, baking powder and kosher salt. You want to do this in a large bowl as the liquid will get added to this mixture.

In another bowl, melt the butter and the instant coffee + 1 teaspoon of water and whisk together to dissolve. If there are still small specs, that's ok. They will continue to dissolve.

Allow the butter to cool slightly, then add the eggs, buttermilk, and vanilla and whisk until smooth. Add this mixture to the dry mixture. Use a rubber spatula to fold the mixture together until just combined.

Transfer the mixture to a piping bag (or ziptop bag and snip the corner) and pipe into a greased donut pan. Don't smooth down the batter; I do roughly one and a three quarter times around. If using a silicon donut pan, place it on a baking sheet before baking.

Bake the donuts in a preheated 350℉/177℃ oven for 14-16 minutes or until they spring back when touched. Allow them to cool for a few minutes, then turn them out onto a wire rack to finish cooling completely.

To make this easy coffee glaze, simply mix the instant coffee with hot water and allow it to cool completely. Then, whisk it into the powdered sugar a tablespoon at a time until a thick glaze forms.

If the glaze is still too thick, add a few drops of water and re-whisk. If it's too thin, add a bit more powdered sugar. It should make thick ribbons when falling off of the whisk.

Once the glaze is made, remove the toffee from the pan (you may need to crack it with the heel of a knife first), then chop into small pieces.

Dip each donut (the nice rounded side that was in the bottom of the pan) into the glaze so it covers about half of the donut, then carefully turn slightly (clockwise), lift, turn the donut so the glaze is facing up. Place the donut on a wire rack.

Sprinkle toffee pieces over each donut once the glaze has stopped moving and has started to set up slightly. Otherwise, the toffee pieces may slide off. You can also use store bought Heath pieces, but note that they are covered in chocolate (which would also be delicious).

To store the donuts, lightly cover them with foil and store at room temperature for two to three days.

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