In the last 3 or 4 years, I don't pay much attention to recipes online and almost never to recipes on social media. Life has been .... different.... over the past few years so this website came to a screeching halt more or less and is just now showing signs of life again.
If recipes come across my feed I'll sometimes stop to watch, once in a great while I'll save one. Almost no time or interest to try many of them but it just so happens I was free today, saw this one, and had the inclination and the ingredients to test it.
Carnivore Donuts.
There are a few (many, actually) different versions of this floating around. I initially saw one in which a young woman who looked and acted like she'd never baked a day in life, was trying a recipe video she saw of a man who was making them. She was using a video inside a video type thing that is so popular on social media.
The recipe used just eggs, milk powder and baking powder (although she had baking soda out on the counter when she started to make it... and then when she did the 'add ingredients' part of her video had switched to a tiny little packet of something instead of the baking soda - she called it baking powder so I assume it was.) I also assume someone told her the difference between baking soda and baking powder so she redid that part of her video. ANYWAY!
Supposedly these have a texture and taste of donuts and are often topped with a mixture of honey and cream cheese. Well, I just literally made cheesecake yesterday which has a similar flavor of the glaze so I decided I'd just use that on them when it came to that point.
I halved the recipe since it was a 'test recipe' and I also just have one donut pan (these are baked donuts, not fried).
CARNIVORE DONUTS
2 eggs
1 c whole milk powder
1/2 t baking powder
Whisk like crazy to get good air, and place into a well buttered donut pan. Bake at 310 for about 10-ish minutes.
WHAT I CHANGED
I added just the tiniest dusting of nutmeg powder as I really like the taste of old fashioned donuts. Not even enough to measure - not even a 'pinch' - less than that. I also added a couple drops of vanilla and lastly, because I saw a commenter say their Carnivore Donuts didn't raise without a little bit of baking soda as well, I added about 1/8 t baking soda.
I mistakenly baked at 350 degrees so they got a bit dark on top. I baked for 11 minutes.
FIRST THE PHOTOS then my opinion at the bottom
The batter - a nice yellow, thick batter that reminded me of the consistency of royal icing when you make it into a flowing 'base'.
Because it's a MINI donut pan, it's easier to pipe in the batter and it just so happens I had a reusable icing bag out as I was product testing them for a company. Immediately after filling - before even using, they did this. Safe to say it went into the trash right after this recipe was made. Because it split, the batter was running down (and out the tip) so I just filled the donut cavities up and they looked more like pop-overs or cream puffs.
Here you can see how I just gave up trying to pipe the batter in nicely and instead, just squished the batter out of the broken bag the best I could, and filled them up all the way instead.
Even though the pan was buttered well, a couple still stuck a bit.They browned more than I'd liked as the oven was preheated at 350 instead of 310.
I baked 11 minutes. The outside top got a bit brown on a few.
They looked like donuts on the bottom and a cream puff on top.
The texture is... a bit 'eggy' typical of keto and low carb, wheat-free baking.
Immediately out of the oven were soft and reminded me more of a cream puff than a donut.
I topped a couple by spreading with the cream cheese filling to be a 'donut'.Meh.
Because they reminded me of cream puffs I grabbed the whipped cream and filled a couple.
Still meh.
FINAL THOUGHTS: I'm very glad I took a little smidgen of time to try these. They were and are nothing like donuts except maybe the fragrance and they must be enjoyed immediately out of the oven while they are still warm. As they cooled, even 10 minutes later, the texture changes. They are then more dry and not nearly as edible as when they were still hot, fresh or warm.
I'm not a fan - and have other recipes that are similar but far better. Very happy I tried this silly 'egg and milk powder' recipe but it's not one I'd make again. I might 'play' with the idea a bit and see if I can improve it, but I don't know if I'll even do that.
