These Chocolate Baked Spider Web Donuts are full of richness and super fun for Halloween! They’re soft and tender, and are lightly spiced to create a beautiful flavor.

Baked Spider Web Donuts for Halloween | URBAN BAKES

When it comes to food, one of my favorite Halloween creations is spider webs! This marshmallow-based goo is extremely simple to manage. Though it can get a little messy, that’s the fun in the process of creating edible spider webs.

Using mini marshmallows, you can create a dramatic change from innocent sprinkled donuts to creepy crawly ones. I’ve dabbled a few times with webbing, one of which was this two-tiered cake. I dyed the melted marshmallows with orange food color beforehand and then went straight into webbing the cake for a simple Halloween look.

As for these Halloween donuts, I build upon an older recipe by adding espresso, nutmeg and an extra egg yolk. Much like with butter pie crusts, I now add egg yolk as it helps to add richness. In the case of baked donuts, it not only adds richness, but it also adds moisture. I found that these donuts’ texture remained softer, more moist and lasted a few days longer with a desirable texture than without using an extra egg yolk.

As with many of my other chocolate recipes, I like to use espresso as it has a unique way of amplifying the flavor of chocolate with only using a pinch. Anything more and you could cross over into mocha; a pinch is plenty to notice a difference. And nutmeg, beautiful yet powerful on its own, adds incredible flavor similar to old-fashioned donuts. Highly recommend adding ground nutmeg into your next batch!

These Halloween donuts use dark chocolate chips and Dutch processed cocoa to conceive a darker appearance. I understand it may be difficult to find Dutch processed cocoa in stores so if you don’t have any, using natural (regular) cocoa powder will work just fine. To achieve a smoother glaze around the donuts, I recommend the following: strain the glaze to remove any dry pockets, pop any bubbles and to double glaze.

I couldn’t find sprinkles as edible spiders to use but had tiny plastic ones found at Walmart. If you have edible spiders, I recommend using those especially if serving this treat around kids. Or you can go without the spiders and still have that creepy crawly look from the webbing.

Side note, whenever I come across webs in real life (which I hate!), I almost always freak out when I can’t find the spider that created the web. Immediately, my mind goes into panic mode because I know the spider is out somewhere and I can’t find it. Am I the only one that does this?

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Spider Web Donuts

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Author: URBAN BAKES
Total Time: 2 hours
Yield: 18 1x
Diet: Vegetarian

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Description

These Chocolate Baked Spider Web Donuts are full of richness and super fun for Halloween! They’re soft and tender, and are lightly spiced to create a beautiful flavor.

Instructions

DONUTS: In a small bowl, microwave chocolate chips for 30 seconds, stir. Reheat for an additional 15 seconds or until about 75% of the chips have melted. Residual heat will melt any remaining chocolate smaller than the size of a pea; set aside to cool.
Heat oven to 350°F (175°C). Spray a donut baking pan with nonstick cooking spray with flour; set aside. In a medium bowl, whisk flour, brown sugar, granulated sugar, cocoa, baking soda, nutmeg, espresso and salt; set aside.
In a large bowl, whisk buttermilk, egg plus egg yolk, melted butter, vinegar and vanilla until just combined. Gradually add the flour mixture and mix until the batter is just combined. Do not overmix.
Using a rubber spatula, fold in cooled melted chocolate until there are no visible streaks in the batter. Spoon batter into each doughnut cavity one-half full. Avoid overfilling the cavities so that each donut has a hole when baked.
Bake for 10-12 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Allow doughnuts to rest in the pan for a few minutes before inverting doughnuts over onto a cloth or wire rack for additional cooling. Repeat the baking process until the batter is completely used. Allow donuts to cool completely before glazing.
GLAZE: In a deep bowl, mix powdered sugar, cocoa and 2 tablespoons of milk until no visible dry pockets remain. Add another tablespoon of milk at a time if the glaze is too thick.
Using a fine mesh sieve, strain chocolate glaze to remove any clumps that couldn’t mix. Lightly tap the bottom of the bowl on the countertop to allow any air bubbles to rise to the surface and pop. If necessary, use a toothpick to pop any bubbles. This will prevent air bubbles within the glaze from showing onto the donuts.
Dip each donut about halfway deep into the glaze. Gently shake off excess glaze and rest the donut glaze-side-up over a wire rack. Note – to achieve picture perfect sprinkled donuts, glaze about 6 donuts at a time before sprinkling your favorite jimmies. This will allow glaze to settle toward the sides of the donut therefore, the jimmies will hold in place when sprinkled. Allow the glaze to dry for 20 minutes before serving.
WEBBING: Note – Ensure chocolate glaze is completely dry before starting work on the marshmallows. In a shallow bowl, microwave 1 cup of marshmallows for 30 seconds, stir. Reheat for 10 seconds if there are any lumps of marshmallows that didn’t melt, stir once more. Avoid over stirring to minimize the amount of air bubbles. Note: Melting marshmallows will initially be very hot. Begin work once it becomes cool enough to handle.
To prevent over sticking of melted marshmallows onto your fingers, rub butter on the inside of your hands and between fingers. Grab a hefty pinch of melted marshmallow and stretch across the donuts. This process is very sticky and may require rinsing of your hands for a clean finish before resuming onto other donuts.
When ready, microwave the remaining half of the marshmallows to finish webbing the remaining donuts. Place 1 to 2 mini spiders onto the donuts (do not eat plastic spiders). Serve and ENJOY!

Prep Time: 20 minutes
Cook Time: 12 minutes
Category: Doughnuts
Cuisine: American

Keywords: halloween donuts, doughnuts, spooky donuts, spider web donuts,