I bought this as a fun activity for me and my three year old daughter. Out of the box you get the donut maker itself (which is about the size of a small George Foreman grill) with an attached power cord, and a small instruction/recipe book (which has only one or two recipes in it). The cooking surface is Teflon-coated. It is a truly bare-bones setup but then again you don't really need a whole lot with this.Setup is a breeze: Just plug it in and close the lid. After a few minutes the red "heating" light goes off and you're ready to go. Lift, fill the six reservoirs with appropriate batter, close, wait about three minutes and you're done. So far we have made chocolate donuts from brownie mix, and yellow and spiced apple donuts from cake mixes. All came out very nice. The cake mix-based donuts cooked a little faster than the brownie mix-based ones.
Each donut is about 2" in diameter with about a 1/2" sized hole in it. One thing that maybe is worth noting: This is a donut machine, not a donut HOLE machine. You will not get tiny-sized "Munchkins" from this machine, only tiny donuts.
TIPS: Use a pastry bag (or a plastic bag with the corner snipped off) to fill the donut molds to avoid spills on the cooking surface. (Be careful with plastic bags or with plastic pastry bag tips; don't let plastic touch the hot surface!) Before filling, wipe the bottom half of the donut molds with some vegetable oil on a paper towel. Use a wood dowel or wood toothpick to remove the donuts; the donuts will flip right out without any sticking. DON'T use cooking spray as it gets everywhere and is hard to clean up (see "the bad" below).
THE GOOD: Very fast donuts, perfectly sized for small children and as a novelty for adults. Easy to use and difficult to screw up; as a test I let some donuts sit for almost eight minutes and they were just fine (and only a little bit dry). It is also a potential calorie control solution; one box of brownie mix easily netted about eight dozen mini donuts, so rather than scarfing down a big fat(tening) brownie you can get a quick chocolate fix from one or two little donuts.:-)
THE BAD: The permanently-attached power cord is a potential hazard; I would have liked to see a safety cord that pops out of the unit if tugged on accidentally. OTOH, the power cord is so short (no WAY it will reach the floor from a kitchen counter) that it shouldn't really be that much of an issue. Also, the baking surfaces are not removable from the unit so you can't just lift them off and throw them in the dishwasher. Then again, if you oil the surface properly (see "tips" above) nothing sticks to it and there's hardly any clean-up.
I would dispute the claim in the description above of it being "safe for even the youngest baker". An EZ-Bake oven is generally safe for young bakers; this, given that the cooking surface is much hotter than a light bulb and has no protection against tiny hands, is NOT the definition of safe. This is not a child's toy nor is it safe for (unsupervised) children. This is a kitchen appliance and should be treated as such.
For an under-$20 kitchen gadget this is tough to beat. You can literally get hundreds of little donuts for very little money. However, be aware of the time investment; this machine only makes six donuts at a time and the average box of cake mix will make around 100 donuts. That's about 16 batches per box. At about five minutes per batch (including oiling the donut wells, pouring the batter in, cooking, and removing the donuts) that's about an hour and a half of work for a single box of cake mix. Since it does cook so fast you can't pour batter in and then go fold laundry for awhile. You have to babysit the unit and keep it going lest you burn up your donuts (which, admittedly, is difficult to do). Just be aware of the time investment and, unless you plan on sacrificing that time to making donuts, you might want to divide up your cake/brownie mixes into smaller batches.
I've only had this machine for about two weeks so I can't speak of longevity. Unless I update this review at a later date with more info, assume that the unit is still working properly.:-)
It is actually a little hard to burn them, as they brown nicely and don't blacken quickly.I dipped them in butter and then a sugar/cinnamon mix, and the result was delicious.Looking forward to finding more recipes!
****3/17/2011
After using for several months, I have not yet found something to dislike!I have used a couple different recipes, with very positive results.Every person who has tried them is a fan, giving me some measure of celebrity status. :)They are also great with coffee!
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I bought this donut maker for portion control!My husband loves chocolate baked goods. Of course this little snack machine makes tiny donuts that do not taste like donuts you get from a donut shop, however, these do taste like cake donuts. I found nice recipes online for free.Many websites have baked donut recipes that will work.
I made chocolate donuts that did not have a WOW factor! I am a baker so I improved the recipe by adding a little more fat, sugar and salt (of course we all love that). Now they are lighter and more tasty.Next I will try a recipe for Vanilla donuts with chocolate frosting and again I will improve the recipe.
You can make master mixes from any recipe by mixing together the dry ingredients and pack them airtight. This makes it easier to bake from scratch.There is no end to what you can bake in this machine. Great for a little sweet snack.
Use your imagination and have fun. This machine is very easy to keep clean. The donuts always come out easily. I put a tiny bit of vegetable oil in the donut wells before the first batch of 6. That is all you need to do. They pop right out using a toothpick after baking for 2-3 minutes.
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I asked for this as a xmas gift from my sister-in-law and I actually got it. Sometimes I don't always get what I ask for but I think I did this time because it was inexpensive and oh so easy to find and order on Amazon. I did not get around to playing with it until about a week ago in the middle of a night of insomnia.
It's a wonderful little donut maker. Does just what it says it will do.
Now my tips based on my usage of the little machine:
1. Do not remove the sticker on the top. It's not just hype; there's an ugly hole under there.
2. The book has only one recipe for cinnamon donuts. However, the basic recipe, I feel, could easily be modified to produce a variety of donuts by changing the spice in the mix and using a different glaze. If I come up with some yummy variations I will post them as comments to my review.
3. The book recipe produces a batter that is not very sweet. My son (23 yrs old) and I agree that the batter could be a tad sweeter. Next baking session I intend to up the batter sugar content slightly (by 1/4 cup or less -will let you know in a comment the ideal amount of sugar after experimenting with it). Right now the batter produces a donut that without the glaze tastes like a waffle.
4. The book recipe batter is a thick batter, thicker than a cake batter but not so thick as a drop cookie batter.
4-Optional Mixing Info A: Batter mixes up very fast with a Kitchen Aid planetary motion mixer rather than a hand held or traditional mixer but don't go out and buy a Kitchen Aid mixer just for the donut maker as they are expensive ($299 when not on sale). However, if you bake a lot and do not yet own a Kitchen Aid (Viking also makes a planetary motion mixer), by all means save up and spring for one or put it on your wish list. Mine is an ugly almond color but has lasted 25+ years without a blip. I bought it because I had burned out 4 hand held/traditional mixers in one year. It now comes in wonderful colors but since mine won't break, can't justify replacing it just cuz I never liked the color.
4-Optional Mixing Info B: I used non-fat milk in my donuts because that's all I normally have in the house and the first batch was made at 3am and came out just fine.
5. The book recipe makes about 30 donuts which is just about right.I never thought of using a brownie mix or cake mix as another reviewer has done. I would not want to make more than 30 at a time just for my family -too time consuming & too many donuts so I think I will just stick with playing with variations of the book recipe.
6. The cooker needs to be oiled *ONLY ONCE* before the baking session, not before each 6 donut batch. Rub top and bottom plates *VERY LIGHTLY* with a scrunched paper towel dabbed with vegetable oil before plugging it in. Spray-on-oil (Pam) puts way too much oil on the cooking plates. Oiling after each batch will grub up the plates and make them harder to clean.
7. Do not overfill the cups. Try to fill level with the flat part of the plate. You do not need to use a pastry bag, that's way over kill. Just two spoons--one to the scoop the batter and one to push the batter off one spoon and into the cup, just like you would do with drop cookies. I am not particular about the holes...I let the batter cover the hole maker and depending on my mood, poke the holes out later if I feel like it.
8. About 90% of the time, a book recipe batch takes exactly 3 minutes (the minimum cooking time mentioned in the book) to cook. In the time it takes to let the previous batch cool enough to touch them and to glaze them, the next batch is almost ready to remove from the donut maker.
9. If the light is on after a batch, wait until the light goes back off before filling it up with the next batch otherwise the next batch will bake imperfectly: parts will be noticeably uncooked on the top. The bottoms always seem to be uneven in color but not uncooked.
10. I use bamboo skewers to remove the donuts; these skewers are very cheap and long enough to be easier to manipulate than a toothpick. The donuts come out really easily but they are hot so put them on a plate and let them cool a minute before touching them.
11. The book recipe glaze is a snap...you can whip it up while the first batch bakes using a microwave to melt the butter. One caveat: the amount of butter suggested is not enough it you want to sugar both sides...double the amount of butter you melt.
12. Some alternate glazes I intend to try after changing the nutmeg in the recipe to vanilla extract or some other extract or spice:
Plain sugar glaze: remove cinnamon from book recipe glaze.
Lemon glaze: 1 part fresh squeeze lemon juice to 2 parts powdered sugar.
Simple Ganache glaze (chocolate like used on eclairs, etc): heavy cream (bring to boil and remove) poured over chopped semi sweet or bittersweet chocolate, mix slightly -lots of free recipes online for this.
Ganache with nuts: after dipping in ganache, dip into chopped toasted almonds or chopped peanuts.
Simple vanilla glaze: gonna try this recipe
13. I have a rolled sugar cookie recipe that requires only 1/4 cup of cocoa to turn them into chocolate cookies so I am going to try adding 1/4 cup cocoa and vanilla to the basic book recipe to get simple chocolate donuts.
14. I have a recipe from my sister for a fresh strawberry cake so I am going to try adding 1/4 chopped fresh strawberries to a vanilla batter and using the cake strawberry icing on the donuts.
15. I am going to try adding small 3oz packages of jello flavors to the recipe to vary the donut flavor (in which case I will probably not increase the sugar since jello has sugar in it).
16. If not a lot of stuck-on residue after baking session (too much oiling causes this), just wipe off with a paper towel otherwise clean with a very soft sponge so you do not damage the nonstick cooking surface.
17. AN APPLIANCE NOT A TOY: personally would not let children under 12 use by themselves. 12 was the age when my mother let my sister and I start using the oven and also the age at which my junior high school put 30+ girls in small kitchens equipped with regular stoves and ovens supervised by only 1 teacher. No one was injured so it seems to be a watershed age for average child to work with stoves and ovens w/o injuring themselves.
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Bought one for my grandson and loved it so much i had to get one for my house as well. I use a muffin mix and about four minutes I have hot fresh donuts in the morning.
I plan to buy svseral for Christmas gifts next year.
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