Fluffy doughnuts with a rich chocolatey nuttiness – heaven. These Baked Nutella Doughnuts are the perfect fix for any Nutella lover. 

If you follow my blog, you’ll know I’m Nutella obsessed. I’m also a pretty big fan of doughnuts too, so this was an obvious recipe choice for me!

Baked doughnuts are so much easier to make because you don’t need to worry about frying them. This also means that they’re healthier, and I’ll take any excuse to make myself feel like baking is healthy! They are just as easy and versatile to make in my opinion as cupcakes. If you were making these for children, you could leave off the hazelnuts and decorate with sprinkles. Or even get the children involved with icing and decorating them as dunking in Nutella is a bit easier for children than frosting cupcakes.

The only slightly tricky part of doughnut making is filling the doughnut pan with the optimum amount of mix. Too little and you’ll have a thin doughnut, too much and when it cooks the mix with cover the hole. Don’t get me wrong, if you overfill it is by no means the end of the world, but you just don’t get the iconic doughnut hole through the middle.

If you don’t have the chocolate hazelnut essence, you don’t have to add this as you will still get the delicious chocolate nutty flavour. I use the Foodie Flavours brand.

As with all doughnuts, these are best eaten on the day you bake them.

Makes 12 doughnuts

140g plain flour
70g caster sugar
1 tbsp cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder 
¼ tsp salt
125ml milk
1 egg
30g Nutella
30g butter, melted and cooled
Approx 6 drops of chocolate hazelnut essence
Spray oil

For the glaze
90g Nutella, melted
20g toast hazelnuts, chopped

1. Preheat the oven to 180ºC (160ºC if fan assisted) and spray two six hole doughnut pans lightly with oil
2. In a large bowl or your mixer, mix together the flour, sugar, cocoa, baking powder and salt
3. In a large jug whisk together the milk, eggs, melted butter and Nutella
4. Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until everything is just combined; it will be quite wet

5. Divide the mix between each doughnut mould. I find the easiest and less messy way of adding the batter to the moulds is by using a piping bag – remember not to overfill!

6. Bake the doughnuts for 13-15 minutes until a cocktail stick comes out clean

7. Allow to cool in the pan until they are cool enough for you to transfer to a wire rack

8. Dip the doughnuts in the melted Nutella making sure they are thoroughly coated
9. Sprinkle with the toasted hazelnuts