The Most Adorable Peanut Butter Character Donuts Ever
If you are what you eat, then why not be adorable and sweet? These kawaii character donuts have got what it takes to make this National Donut Day the cutest and tastiest one you’ve ever experienced. Believe it or not, they’re relatively virtuous, as donuts go, featuring a baked donut recipe from our recipe archives. They’re coated with a simple glaze made using Peanut Butter & Co. Honey Peanut Powder & Pure Peanut Peanut Powder, confectioners’ sugar, and milk, and then decorated to resemble kawaii-like creatures. You may have trouble deciding whether you want to cuddle with them or eat them, but trust me, you’ll be rewarded if you choose the latter: these peanut buttery donuts are as crave-worthy as they are coo-worthy.
- Yield:10 donuts
- Prep Time:20 minutes
- Cook Time:N/A
- Total Time:20 minutes
Supplies
Two wire racks, two large mixing bowls, a whisk, a rubber spatula, and a spoon.
Ingredients
For the cake:
10 baked donuts (I used the baked donuts from this recipe, omitting the icing)
4 tbsp Peanut Butter & Co. Peanut Powder (either Honey or Pure Peanut both work well)
2 cup confectioners’ sugar, sifted
1/4 cup salted butter
1/4 to 1/3 cup milk
About 24 small vanilla wafer cookies (see recipe note)
Decorating icing in black
Directions
Assemble your setup. Have ready your donuts, a wire rack, two large mixing bowls, a whisk, a rubber spatula, and a spoon.
In the mixing bowl, combine the Peanut Powder with the confectioners’ sugar. Using the whisk, mix the two powdery substances together until cohesive.
Add the milk, a little at a time, and whisk until it comes together in a thick but pourable consistency. Use the rubber spatula to scrape down the sides if needed. If it seems too thin, add a little more confectioners’ sugar. Basically, you want the glaze thick enough so that it won’t all drip off of your donuts. If desired, you can also tint some of the mixture in different colors; as you can see, I tinted a small portion of the glaze with red dye to make the piggy donuts you see in some of the photos.
Let the glaze sit for the moment, and turn your attention to the donuts. Make a gentle cut on either side of the top of the donut, and in those little slits, insert the mini vanilla wafer cookies for ears. You can insert the whole cookie for rounded ears, or cut the cookies in half for pointy ears.
Place one of the wire racks over the empty mixing bowl. Place your first donut on top of the wire rack, and use a spoon to drizzle the glaze on top of the donut, coating the donut and the “ears” you added. Let the excess glaze drip into the bowl below the wire rack.
Note: does the glaze seem too liquid, or is it not fully coating the donuts? Don’t panic. Let the donut set for a few minutes, then apply a second coat; that should do the trick.
Once the excess glaze has dripped off, transfer the donut to the second wire rack so that it can set. Continue with the remaining donuts.
Note: You can use the glaze that has drizzled into the bowl below the wire rack of your work area to continue glazing the remaining donuts. Or, reserve this glaze to make touch-ups if you see that any of the donuts are lacking in glaze coverage.
Let the donuts set until the glaze has become matte in appearance. Once this has occurred, you can begin to decorate the donuts with little faces.
Using your black decorating icing, begin to make faces. When working in this kawaii style, the simpler the better (and cuter)! Create an outline in the shape of the ears, two simple dots for eyes, a dot for a nose, and whiskers or a little smiling face if desired.
Note: To make the noses on the monkey and pig donuts, I dipped some of the mini vanilla wafers in the glaze mixture and then used a little more glaze to affix it to the donut.