Doughnuts or Donuts?

Either way you choose to spell it, I've been on a quest to make them...of the baked sort. Have you ever heard of baked donuts? It's new to me too, but it's sounds better than having to deal with oil and a fryer. I've not had the best history with frying donuts...:) If I mention making donuts, everyone runs while reminding me of the "Donut Fiasco"! LOL Here's why...

When I was around the age of 13, I had the great idea to make donuts. I had never done it before but I figured how hard could it be...just follow the directions, right? I put my pan of oil on the stove and put a lid on it. When I came back to check on it...FLAMES came shooting out of the pan! It scared me soooo bad. Thankfully my parents were home and my dad came to the rescue. He grabbed the pan and took it outside to put out the flame. Unfortunately, his hand got burnt pretty bad. That made me feel even worse. So as I'm sure you can imagine, if I mention donuts everyone sees flames! I do have to say though that I have made donuts since then with a fryer (that we had at the time but I didn't find out till later) and no hands were burnt in the process. ;) 

Back to the baked donuts. I searched the internet for different recipes and I found many different ones. Some required a special pan and others you roll out the dough and cut out the donuts.

Attempt #1 - Since I didn't have the special pan, I opted for the cut out donuts. Here's the recipe I used...we were not a fan of them though. They were more like bagels and tasted very nutmeggy, but that was my fault. It called for freshly grated, and I wasn't even thinking that the measurements would be VERY different when using dried. My bad. 

I made a green glaze for St. Patricks Day, but also did a cinnamon sugar coating. I guess I didn't take pictures of those.

I decided to get a pan to try the other kind. There are donut pans but Walmart only had a mini bundt pan, and I figured it would work just the same, plus they'd look all fancy, plus I can make mini bundt cakes sometimes. :)

Attempt #2 - I found several recipes that were almost exactly alike. I tried this one and this chocolate one.  The regular ones were good. Not as moist as I would have like them to be, and after sitting out over night were very dry. The chocolate ones were better, but I'm not sure if I'd make them again. They're just not quite what I'm looking for.

I still have a recipe or two that I want to try. I'll be sure to let you know if I find a winner.

Do you make donuts? Baked or fried? What's your favorite recipe?