Donuts, Part Deux

While I preferred the taste of my first attempt at donuts--Bacon Cake Donuts that didn't quite taste like bacon but were still so delicious--I did prefer the look (i.e., the toppings) of my second donut attempt shown here. In this second attempt at baked (not fried!) dough, I pretty much just followed Wilton's Baked Cake Donut recipe on the back of my pan, except I doubled the amount of batter so I could have enough treats for my family and my coworkers. They were tasty, but I think the addition of a little bacon grease and brown sugar instead of white sugar really made a difference in the overall flavor (and color--this week's caked donuts turned out rather pale underneath the toppings). However, my second donut attempt still received many compliments and make a nice treat for anyone--especially with chocolate and sprinkles on top!

So if you'd like to recreate the recipe, I'll still share what I did below. The recipe for an awesome chocolate topping--also from the Wilton's donut pan but with a little more chocolate--follows!

Chocolate Cake Donuts

Ingredients:
4 cups cake flour, sifted

1 and 1/2 cups granulated sugar

4 teaspoons baking powder

1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg

2 teaspoon salt

1 and 1/2 cups buttermilk

4 eggs, lightly beaten

4 tablespoons butter, melted

Directions:

1.) Preheat the oven to 425 degrees. Spray your donut pan with nonstick cooking spray or line a cupcake pan with paper cupcake liners (I got lazy and decided that instead of trying to fill my six-donut pan over and over again, I would make a batch of donut-flavored cupcakes to finish off the batter).

2.) In a very large mixing bowl, sift the cake flour, sugar, baking powder, nutmeg and salt. Add in the buttermilk and eggs. Make sure your melted butter has cooled slightly before adding it last. Beat carefully until all ingredients are just combined--no more flour should be visible, but the batter shouldn't be overmixed.

3.) Fill your donut pan or cupcake liners approximately 2/3 to 3/4 full and bake for about 9-10 minutes (mine still came out pale at 10 minutes even though the original recipe calls for 7-9 minutes. And I did three separate batches in the oven rather than try to fit all my filled tins in there at once, so who knows why they still came out so light?).

4.) Let the donuts cool about 2-5 minutes before prying them gently from the pan with a couple of toothpicks. Place on a wire rack to cool completely before dipping them in a bowl of chocolate glaze and then a bowl of sprinkles. Recipe for Chocolate Glaze is below.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup plus 1/4 cup semisweet chocolate chips

2 Tablespoons unsalted butter

2 Tablespoons light corn syrup

Directions:

1). In a microwave-safe bowl, combine the 1/2 cup of chocolate chips, butter and corn syrup. Microwave on 50 percent power for 50 seconds.

2). Carefully remove the bowl from the microwave (it will be hot--I used potholders) and add the extra 1/4 cup of chocolate chips, stirring while you add. The mixture should turn from thin drizzle to thick frosting consistency. And it tastes as good as it looks!

That's it! But don't forget these key details in the donut-making process:

1. Donuts taste best when fresh. They will get stale quickly when left out and attempted to eat two days later. All is not lost, however, if you want to eat donut leftovers! Place them in an airtight plastic baggie to stave off staleness as long as possible! If all else fails, dip rock-hard donuts in coffee to instantly soften them up!

2. These donuts can be made into cupcakes! Because they rise so much (and because I got lazy), I thought it made perfect sense to try filling a few cupcake liners with donut batter too! It worked! Just be careful peeling off the paper as they tend to stick.

3. The dipping in chocolate and sprinkles is the fun part! I try to get just the right amount of glaze on each one, turning the donuts so they leave a smooth design of chocolate and an evenly spread sprinkling of sprinkles. If you really want to be daring, you can try the chocolate glaze on top of the Bacon donuts mentioned earlier. Use bacon bits instead of sprinkles to top the chocolate and enhance the bacon flavor. Doesn't that sound good?

4. Despite bacon, chocolate, butter and sugar...these donuts are healthy! Somewhat healthy! They're baked (not fried!) and made with all-natural homemade ingredients. So that's a start!

All-in-all, I'd say donuts are a success in my book no matter how you make them. It was a fun experiment for me to try, having never ever made a donut before this month! But I will definitely be baking them again!

Single-Portion Sugar Cookies!

Happy St. Patrick's Day! While not necessarily known as a typical dessert holiday (like Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine's Day for me), I love any excuse to bake anything--even if it turns out green. Especially if it turns out green (my all-time favorite color!).

While I could have picked Irish Soda Bread or even Green Eggs and Ham to make and post about for this occasion, I'm choosing to write about sugar cookies instead. Why sugar cookies? Because they're the most classic holiday cookie you can eat (Chocolate Chip does not count as a "holiday cookie" to me, but rather an "anytime cookie"). Sugar cookies are the proverbial pot of golden deliciousness at the end of the rainbow. And what makes this recipe even more magical is that you can whip up one of these cookies for yourself in an instant! The recipe is individually portioned--an original creation I used at the public library where I work in our quarterly children's baking program this very afternoon!

If you're a regular reader of my blog, or a regular patron/staff member at my library, you may already be familiar with the "Bake With Me" program I set up every season for kids ages 2-6 to get hands-on baking experience with their parents or caregivers. You may have seen how excited and frazzled I get on a "Bake With Me" day, or how proudly I beamed when the program was mentioned two years ago in the national Association for Library Services to Children (ALSC) e-newsletter (scroll about halfway down the page to find the writeup and two more single-portion recipes!). When you combine baking, kids and libraries, how can the results be anything but awesome? I can't help but want to share them!

So even if you've never seen the program, the beauty of this blog is that I can show the same recipe we used so you can recreate the experience with your kids, parents, friends or just you when you're craving a cookie. You don't even have to make it green if you don't want to. Just make it fun!

Shamrock Sugar Cookies


Ingredients:
1/2 Tablespoon butter, softened
1 Tablespoon sugar
1/2 Tablespoon egg or egg substitute (the substitute makes for easier pouring--anything like Egg Beaters will work)
1/8 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 Tablespoons whole wheat pastry flour (That's what I always use, but any flour will do)
1/16 teaspoon baking soda (I just filled a 1/8 teaspoon half full)
1/16 teaspoon salt (Or a pinch. That works too)
6 drops green food coloring

Directions:

1). Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and place a square of parchment (NOT wax) paper on a baking sheet.

2). Use a fork to mush the butter in a small bowl and combine it with the sugar. Add the egg and vanilla, then mix again and set aside. In a slightly larger bowl, combine the flour, baking soda and salt.

3). Add the sugar mixture to the flour mixture. Drop in the food coloring and mix well. At this point it helps to use your hands to knead the dough a little--the green color spreads more evenly that way. Then flatten the dough with your hands and use a shamrock cookie cutter (or any cookie cutter, really) to press out the shape.

4). Bake on the parchment papered baking sheet for about 6-7 minutes, then let cool slightly before eating.

With a wee bit o' luck, you'll end up with a cookie that's quite a charm! Enough to make even the leprechauns green with envy. Enjoy!

"Donuts, I got Donuts"

If you're a Simpsons TV show fan, go ahead and say it with me: "Mmm...donuts." Or we can sing Chief Wiggum's donut song: "Donuts, I got donuts...."

Don't know what I'm talking about? D'oh! Oh well, just check out the awesome pictures and the recipe below for my first ever attempt at homemade donuts!  Finally, finally, another success!  I owe it all to shopping with my mom at Bed, Bath & Beyond where I swore I wasn't going to buy anything, until I saw it: a shiny, enticing, never-before-owned-by-me donut pan, complete with recipe ideas attached. I happen to absolutely without a doubt love donuts, and absolutely without a doubt never eat them because I don't eat fried foods anymore. Le sigh.

However, one of my favorite types of donuts used to be the glazed "cake" donut (pancakes, shortcakes, birthday cakes--do you see a pattern in my favorite treats?). And everyone knows cake is baked, not fried. (Yay, healthier already!). So I took the Wilton's recipe for standard Baked Cake Doughnuts that came with my new pan, and twisted it up with the one food item I'd been wanting to incorporate into my baked goods forever. The one item I knew could dress up a standard donut recipe and make it shine--or perhaps sizzle. Bacon.

Now these donuts did not turn out overwhelmingly bacon-y in taste (is that good or bad?) so I might have to experiment with adding just a little more bacon grease and bits next time. But the result was still fluffy, sweet, and so delicious.

Bacon Cake Donuts

Ingredients:


2 cups cake flour, sifted
2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup brown sugar
3/4 cup buttermilk
2 eggs
1 and 2/3 Tablespoons melted butter
1/3 Tablespoon (1 teaspoon) bacon grease
1 teaspoon bacon bits (cooked bacon, chopped)

Directions:


1). Preheat the oven to 425 degrees a spray a donut pan with nonstick cooking spray (or, if you don't have a donut pan, I suppose you could use a muffin tin and see what happens!). In a large bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, nutmeg and salt.

2). In a separate bowl, combine the brown sugar, buttermilk, eggs, melted butter and bacon grease. (The grease is easy enough to collect from bacon heated on the stove--I used about nine small pieces of precooked Trader Joe's Fully Cooked Uncured Bacon to get a teaspoon of grease, though). It helps if the butter and grease has cooled a little before adding them to the mixture--otherwise they'll curdle the eggs.

3). Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and beat gently until just combined. Bake approximately seven minutes, then remove from oven and let sit at least five minutes before removing from the pan carefully with a couple of toothpicks on the sides of the donuts to turn them out. Let cool slightly, then drizzle with icing or dip in frosting if so desired.

My intention was to create a "Maple-Bacon" breakfast kind of donut, actually, but I just couldn't get my frosting to taste or look quite right. So that's an experiment for another day. Rather than wait until I had a perfect maple syrup frosting recipe concocted before writing this post, I figured I'd best just get it up here and you can either use your favorite canned frosting, try out one of my previous recipes like eggnog frosting or just eat them plain (that's what I did!) with a side of coffee for dunkin'. Tasted perfect to me! You won't have to say "D'oh!" and "Nuts!" separately ever again. Mmm...donuts....

Failed Experiments Part II: Banana Muffies

I did not set out to make Banana Muffin Tops (or "muffies" as the bakery/cafe/restaurant Panera likes to call them) on the morning of Sunday, March 11. But I was on a runner's high from having gotten a good jog in for the first time in weeks (56 days to be exact, but who's counting?) and I was energized to bake on my one full day off. I started with pancake batter because my dad always wants pancakes for breakfast on Sunday. Then I assessed what ingredients I had around the house and what I could throw together without even glancing at a recipe.

That's right, I attempted to make a baked good recipe-free.

This is a big deal for me. I love to experiment but I need to have some kind of foundation for my experimentation. I need order for things to make sense. Baking is a science and science needs to be exact so that other scientists can later repeat the process (that's what the scientific method--question, research, hypothesis, experiment, data, conclusion--is all about). But I figured, "What the hey? After all the baking I've done, I can probably throw something together with proper proportions from memory, right?"

You may think now is the time to shake your head sadly or just laugh in my face. You may be expecting a photo of exploded banana muffin batter to come next....  But unlike my truffle failure, this baking experiment turned out with the perfect shape and texture (see the picture above). It was in flavor, however, that I failed.

And I wouldn't even call it a failure--just not quite the success I was going for. Cutting perhaps a bit too far back on oil and sugar, the taste of these muffins was just "all right."  Though they smelled delicious both in the oven and when my mom sliced one in half and grilled it on the stove. So if you attempt to make this healthier version of a banana muffin tops (or regular banana muffins if you don't have "muffin top" pans or cups), you might want to remind your taste testers to butter them, jam them up, or even add a little frosting on top to give just a little extra moisture (as well as sugar or fat--because that is what makes things taste good) to an almost successful experiment.

Ingredients:


1 and 1/2 cups whole wheat pastry flour sifted
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 pinches of salt
3 small bananas, ripe and mashed
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup buttermilk
1/2 cup fat-free milk
2 Tablespoons canola oil
1 egg
1 egg white

Directions:


1). Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Line a baking sheet with muffin top paper liners or grease a regular muffin pan with nonstick cooking spray.

2). In a large bowl, combine the flour, baking soda, and salt. In a separate bowl, combine the bananas, sugar, milks, oil, and eggs.

3). Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and stir until everything is well combined but not overmixed. Lumps are definitely okay.

4). Pour the batter evenly into the muffin cups and bake for about 10 minutes (a little longer if you're making muffins instead of muffin tops) until a toothpick inserted in the center of the muffie comes out clean.

If I attempt this recipe again, I will likely add a little more oil, a little more brown sugar and perhaps experiment with the kind of dairy I use as well. In theory, these muffins can be made with just buttermilk, just milk (fat-free probably isn't the best option, though), or even yogurt or sour cream. Perhaps two eggs would be better than one egg white (that one was leftover from the pancake batter's egg yolk). And if the bananas I chose to use had been just a touch riper, the muffies probably would have been a little sweeter and more moist too.

So here's to hoping my next recipe is an absolute knockout! Want a preview of coming blog attractions? Well, I do have plans for a fun St. Patrick's Day cookie treat (hopefully I'll have time to post it during the actual month of St. Patrick's Day). And I also just bought myself a donut pan this very evening. I'm imagining a donut with bacon. You just can't fail with bacon. I can't wait to try it out and share!

Failed Experiments Part I: Chocolate Truffles

In baking, as in life, things don't always turn out as planned. I wish I could say all my experiments were heavenly, mouth-watering, over the moon successes. But I do live on Earth, my optimism occasionally grounded by the cold, hard realities that whole wheat can be dry as dirt, the only good substitute for sugar is sugar, and chocolate will never be fat free. So I guess I shouldn't be surprised that my attempt to replace "heavier" ingredients (like heavy cream) with "lighter" ones (like fat-free half and half) resulted in a Valentine's Day treat only slightly more deflated than my lofty aspiration to make baked goods that are healthy (My dreams will rise again--my chocolate truffles...will not). It's a good thing I made some Valentine backups this year, including homemade chocolate shapes (also found in my December post here),

more Chocolate Peanut Butter Hearts and even some chocolate cupcakes from a box, topped with cherry frosting and dotted with Dove Dark Chocolate & Cherry Swirl Heart-Shaped Promises (candies that are truly divine just on their own). The cupcakes turned out great:

Too bad I don't have a recipe to share, but I might work on coming up with my own from-scratch version with real cherries in the frosting too!

So yes, I made all these treats the night before Valentine's Day to have something to share with family, coworkers, and friends, as well as something chocolately to post here for V-Day as promised (I do acknowledge that I'm almost a month late--refer back to my "things don't always turn out as planned" opening). With such a smorgasbord of chocolate to offer, I guess it's okay that my first-ever attempt at Chocolate Truffles ended up looking like...this:

See, I wasn't kidding about the deflation.

If you're curious what not to do to make chocolate truffles (they're supposed to be round) follow my recipe below that was (rather poorly) adapted from Williams-Sonoma's Chocolate Truffles recipe. Visit their website if you want to know what to actually do in order to make truffles the correct (and, of course, more fattening) way.

Flat N' Low-Fat Chocolate Truffles


Ingredients:

4 Tablespoons unsalted butter
8 ounces milk chocolate chips
1/4 cup fat-free half and half
1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

Directions:


1.) Pour the half and half into a small pot over medium heat. Let it warm, then lower the heat and add the chocolate chips and butter. Stir until all the chocolate is melted and smooth.

2). Remove the mixture from heat and let cool at least 15 mintues. Stir in the vanilla extract and then pour into a large paper bowl. Refrigerate overnight.

3). At this point you're supposed to be able to scoop the chocolate mixture into the shape of gumballs. Every time I tried to do this the chocolate fell apart into a not-quite-liquid, not-quite-solid lump. And it got my hands extremely messy. So I let the chocolate chill another day.

4). Try to get a ball-ish shape out of the chocolate using a spoon or rolling them with the palms of your hands. Then roll them in the cocoa powder until they're fully coated.

5). Place the "truffles" in the freezer in an attempt to get them to keep some sort of shape (they probably won't). Roll them in cocoa powder if you can. Eat if you dare.

The good news is that the flavor of the truffles will actually be rather tasty (I can't eat much milk chocolate because of the dairy but I did try one bite). The texture is the biggest issue, and I know it's because I didn't use full-fat cream. But hey, just because we live on Earth doesn't mean we can't be optimists too. I'll take this as a learning experience and think such positive thoughts as how all the best inventions were created through trial and error and many failed attempts. The important thing is that you try. You stay open to experimentation. You don't stay deflated for long.

Next up, my only-sort-of failed experiment with banana muffin tops (But I promise I'll return to more delicious successes soon!).