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What to do with day-old doughnuts? A “cakeughnut” \ˈkāk-ə-nət\ is a cake made of day-old doughnuts. That’s right. I said A CAKE MADE OUT OF DOUGHNUTS. The process of being turned to a cake restores the doughnuts to their former glory; you wind up a very moist cake that tastes like a doughnut! For this chocolate-glazed version, any cake mix will work, but when it comes to the doughnuts, you’ll want to use high-quality, delicious, cake-style. If you live in Chicago, I recommend Do-Rite.

(If you’re not in a chocolate mood … really? OK, then check out this cherry version.)

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Makes 2 nine-inch round cakes, producing 24 medium-sized servings

So, why make a cake out of doughnuts? Well, for one, because you can. Two, why not? And three, when you walk into your next pot luck and say, “Here, I brought this cake made out of doughnuts,” a silence will fall over the room, followed by a mad rush that will put the opening of Black Friday at Walmart to shame. This is an excellent make-ahead cake. Although it’s delicious fresh, 1½ – 2 days later, stored at room temperature, it’s actually – as incredible as it sounds – better.

This cake makes it worthwhile to buy excess doughnuts. If that’s not enough motivation for you, at least take note of the glaze. You’d find this type of glaze on a Long John, if your Long John came from a worthy bakery: thick, fudgy, with a smooth, dry, glossy surface that easily gives way to a creaminess underneath (as opposed the type you’d get at a gas station, which would be disappointingly lacking in flavor, yet so intensely sugary that it hurts your teeth to bite into it).

Ingredients for the cake

2 large, day-old,^[1] old-fashioned doughnuts (yellow cake with chocolate glaze)
4 large, day-old, double-chocolate old-fashioned doughnuts (chocolate cake with chocolate glaze)^[2]
1 yellow cake mix (which may require additional ingredients, such as eggs and oil)^[3]
½ cup chocolate chips and/or chopped nuts, optionally

Ingredients for the glaze

½ cup unsalted butter [115 grams] 1 Tbs light corn syrup
2 tsp vanilla extract
¼ cup cream or whole milk [60 grams] 4 oz. bittersweet chocolate
2 cups confectioners sugar [220 grams]

Directions

1. Slice the doughnuts in half like a bagel, then slice the halves into ½-inch wedges. Set aside. 2. Follow cake mix package directions with the following insertions:

• Line the pans with parchment.^[4]
• Just before pouring batter into pans, fold in doughnuts and options.  (Options are truly optional. Cake is delicious with or without them.) Allow the doughnut chunks to soak in the batter for 5 minutes before proceeding.
• Once you’ve poured the batter into the pans, you may have to use a spatula and some muscle to force all the doughnut chunks down into the batter and level the top in as much as feasible.

3. You may need to bake these cakes a few minutes longer than the box directions. When testing with a toothpick, don’t dip it directly in and out the way you normally would. Swirl the toothpick around in a circle slightly smaller than the circumference of a dime. This will give you a better indication of the cake’s readiness. By the time it’s done, the whole top should brown similar to the way a cookie would. The top of the cake may feel a little tacky, but it should not be flat-out wet or uncooked. 4. Allow the cakes to cool until they (and the pans) are firmly past the point that they can be handled easily with your bare hands, but not quite to the point of being room temperature (15-20 minutes). Remove cakes from pans and allow to cool completely on wire racks.

5. Once the cakes are completely and utterly stone-cold room temperature, slip a piece of wax paper or whatever under the wire racks that the cakes are on. This will catch excess glaze that drips off the cakes. Place butter, corn syrup, vanilla extract, and milk in a saucepan^[5] and heat, stirring occasionally, until butter melts. Off heat, add chocolate and stir until texture is smooth and homogenous. Add 1 cup of powdered sugar, and beat with a handheld mixer, on high speed, until texture is smooth and unified, with no lumps. Continue adding sugar by the ¼-cupful, beating in the same manner. Stop when the texture is quite thick, but still molten – approximately the texture of a very thick hot fudge sauce. 6. At this point, you don’t need to work “quickly,” but you can’t sit on your ass, either, because this glaze is going to set. Pour half of it on one of the cakes. Use a rubber spatula to spread it over the surface, close to the edge. Then, start pulling the glaze from the center, out toward the edge, working as though you’re tracing the spokes of a wheel. As you do this, push the glaze over the edge of the cake and let it drip down. Use firm strokes and pull a lot of glaze over the edge of the cake. When you’re done, you should have about 1/8-inch layer of glaze left on the top of the cake. The glaze that winds up on the wax paper: eat it with a spoon, spread it on graham crackers, or nuke it and pour it over ice cream. 7. Same thing, other cake.

Notes:

Choco-Glazed Cakeughnut: Yeah, It Kind of Does Look Like PacMan

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