How to Make Miniature Clay Donuts

In the end, everything made out of polymer clay is just a series of easy instructions that add up to an obvious shape. Donuts are an easy one to guess yourself, but sometimes it's easier to get started when you have someone elses tutorial before you. Perhaps the best part of miniature donuts is their variety. I made raspberry and lemon filled powdered donuts, bavarian cream filled chocolate covered donuts, simple chocolate covered donuts, and chocolate covered donuts with nuts. These all went together on a sweets bracelet I was making for a friend as a gift. Turning the clay donuts into charms isn't pictured, but is easy to do by inserting an eye pin before baking.

Shopping List

• Modeling clay. A wide variety of clays is useful, but I think the absolute necessities are a light brown (caramel), a dark brown (chocolate), some white and some black, and a little red and yellow for fillings.
• An implement with a bluntly pointed end. I used a cheap plastic clay tool.

Creating Colors

If you've been working with clay for any length of time, you probably already realize this, but just in case: polymer clays like Fimo and Sculpey III can be blended much like acrylic paints to make new colors. Nearly any color in the rainbow can be formed from just a few base colors. In general, darkening colors is easier than lightening colors, so if you are making pink start out with plenty of white and not much red. In this tutorial I tried to mention what colors I had used to make other colors, but I didn't outline how much of each to use. It should be easy to guesstimate how much you need.

It can be hard to create the exact same shade of color twice. When I realize I'll be running out of a color soon, I usually mix another ball of it until it's nearly the same shade as what I was working with, then mix the old ball together with the new. If I catch myself early enough that the old ball is larger than the new ball, the resulting ball is close enough that no one will look at it and realize there's a color difference.

As usual, my camera made an awful job of the pictures. The backdrop is an old speaker box.

Steps by Picture

First, I created a light brown donut color and divided it into small round balls. Remember that FIMO gets slightly darker when baked.

I lightly flattened the ball into a donut. Don't over-flatten.

For the donut with a hole in it, I used a plastic clay shaping tool to create a hole. I stuck it in the center of one side, then switched sides and stuck the point through from the other side too.

I lightly rolled the tool around the hold to press down any extra bits sticking out from hole creation. Don't press too hard or it creates unnecessary indentations.

I created a much darker brown to use as chocolate icing, and flattened a pinch of it into a circle. The icing should be pretty thin, centered on the donut, and falling slightly less than halfway down the donuts side. It's fine if it isn't a perfect circle--have you ever seen a perfect donut of the non-fake variety?

Use the clay implement to stick a hole in the icing. This pushes the icing partially down the hole, much like real icing is.

For this particular donut, my finish touch was adding nuts (chunky bits of different browns). Other ideas include leaving the donut brown or adding sprinkles.

This is the beginning of a filled donut (taken up from step 2). I light pressed the clay tool into the side, creating an indent for filling to "spill" out of.

I used a yellow-white color as lemon filling, but other ideas include raspberry and apple cinnamon. Take a pinch of filling and roll it into a tiny short rope. Stick the end in the hole, then press the filling downward slightly so it doesn't stick away from the donut.

Here are some finished donuts, including the two I just described how to make.