Doughnut Worry…

Easier said than done right?

We are officially into week three of our social distancing in B.C and I have a feeling this is what life may look like for quite some time. I’d be lying if I said I was doing great. Home from work, kids home from school, hubby working from home and I miss people!

This morning as my husband was getting ready to go to work (from his desk in the living room) he said “why don’t you get the old betcha can’t eat just one up and running again!” Seeing that I have a lot of time on my hands and friends asking for the recipes on my social media posts it seems like an appropriate time so here it goes!

Happy to have you join me!

Now on to the important stuff…. Doughnuts!  I have posted this recipe in the past but I have since tweaked it!

Here’s what you’ll need:

For Doughnuts

• 2.5 tsp active dry yeast
• 1 cup warm water
• 3 tbsp granulated sugar
• 1 egg, beaten
• pinch of nutmeg
• 1/3 cup butter, melted and cooled
• 1 tsp vanilla
•  1/2 tsp salt
•  2.5 cups of flour (you may require more flour than this)
• cooking oil for frying 
• deep fry thermometre 

For the Chocolate Glaze (recipe from Alton Brown)

• 1/2 cup butter
• 1/4 cup whole milk
• 1 tbsp light corn syrup (if you only have dark that will work )
• 2 tsp vanilla extract
• 4 ounces bittersweet chocolate, chopped (lets get real, there’s a pandemic.  Just use chocolate chips if you that’s what you have!)
• 2 cups confectioners sugar, sifted

Begin by adding the warm water, sugar and yeast to your mixing bowl and give it a little bit of a whisk to mix.  Next add the beaten egg, vanilla and the cooled butter.   Add half of the flour along with the nutmeg and salt and mix to form a dough. If you are using a kitchen aid mixer, use the dough hook attachment and mix on low speed.    Continue to add flour until the dough pulls away from the edges of the bowl and forms a ball.   The dough should be soft and slightly tacky but not sticky.   If you are kneading by hand, the same rule applies, you want the dough to be soft but not sticky.

Transfer dough to a greased bowl and cover with a tea towel.  Let rise for 1 hour or until doubled in bulk.

After the dough has risen, gently deflate the dough and roll out on lightly floured surface 3/4″-1″ thick.   Using a doughnut cutter, or a circle cutter, cut doughnuts and place on parchment paper.  You can also set the doughnut holes aside to rise.

Cover the doughnuts with a clean tea towel and allow to rise again for about 45 minutes.  

 While the doughnuts rise, fill a heavy bottom large pot with about 3″ of cooking oil and heat over medium high until the oil reads between 325-375 degrees F.

  I have found that this takes some experimentation to figure out.  If your oil is not hot enough, your dough will absorb the oil and be greasy and gross.  If too hot, your dough will brown too quickly and leave you with uncooked dough in the middle.  Don’t get discouraged if this happens.  Once my oil is up to temperature, I have to turn the stove element down and back up occasionally to keep the oil at the right cooking temp.  

 This is where your doughnut holes and scraps of dough come in handy!  Use them to test your oil before you commit with your doughnuts!

Once risen, place a few doughnuts carefully into the hot oil and cook for about a minute and a half each side.  

Remove doughnuts to a cooling rack that’s been placed on a cookie sheet lined with paper towel to catch the oil drips.  Continue with remaining doughnuts and holes until all have been fried.

We shook our doughnut holes in a paper bag with cinnamon and sugar . 

While your doughnuts cool, snack on doughnut holes and prepare chocolate glaze!

To make the Glaze

Combine the butter, milk, corn syrup and vanilla in a small saucepan over medium heat.  Whisk together until butter is melted and then whisk in chocolate until smooth.  Add in the sifted powdered sugar and whisk until smooth and glossy.  

Dip your doughnuts right away and sprinkles, nuts, coconut or whatever your heart desires then give the glaze 30 minutes to set. 

I had some Bavarian cream in the pantry so I made some Boston Cream doughnuts as well.  Use a knife to pierce the side of the doughnut and using a pastry bag, fill with cream. 

Enjoy! 

Strawberry Black Tea Chia Jam and Oatmeal Breakfast Cookies

These breakfast cookies are like a hearty, handheld, delicious oatmeal to go!

No added sugar, sweetened with bananas and topped with delicious Strawberry Chia Jam and a drizzle of almond butter!  The next time I bake these, i’ll likely add some coconut and chopped almonds to the oats to give them some more texture and you could add a few scoops of whey protein to round out your snack but they are pretty good as is.

The recipe for the cookies can be found HERE from Oh She Glows

Jam has been completely off of my radar for the last 6 months!  Jam is loaded with sugar and the few times I’ve stolen a lick from the spoon when making a PBJ sandwich for the kids, I’ve found it far too sweet for my liking now anyways.

But once in a while, a piece of whole wheat toast slathered with some crunchy peanut butter and a spoonful of Jam just needs to happen!

This Chia Jam is free of added sugar, you could add some honey, maple syrup, or low-calorie sweetener of your liking if you find the fruit isn’t sweet enough, but I was happy with the way it turned out as is.  The kids prefer a little bit sweeter so I’ll add a bit of honey to theirs.  You can replace the strawberries with the berry or other fruit of your choice!  Don’t like the idea of tea?  Leave it out!  Want to get fancy? Toss in some fresh herbs while the fruit simmers and remove before adding the chia seeds.  I love adding rosemary or fresh thyme!

  Limitless possibilities!

You could stir your Jam into plain greek yogurt or eat it straight from the jar use it anywhere you would regular Jam or Jelly!

  I won’t judge!

Strawberry Black Tea Chia Jam makes about 500 ml

• 1 lb berries (I used frozen strawberries)
• 1/4 cup concentrated black tea (I steeped 2 tea bags for 3-5 minutes)
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp lemon juice
• 2-4 tbsp. chia seeds
• honey *optional, add sweetener to your liking

In a medium size saucepan, bring the fruit, tea, sweetener (if using) and lemon to a simmer and simmer over medium heat until the fruit is soft.  If not using the tea, you may want to add a bit of water to help get the fruit simmering.

Remove from heat and mash the berries.  Stir in Vanilla and chia seeds.  I used all 4 tbsp. of chia, if you don’t care for your Jam to be as thick, you can start with 2 tbsp as you can always add more.

(The chia seeds will become gelatinous and thicken everything up as it cools.)

Pour into a Jar and let set up

Your Chia Jam will keep for 2 weeks in the fridge.

Enjoy!

Cinnamon Maple Almond Butter

I love almond butter!

I love almond butter but often skip buying it at the grocery store as the price can sometimes be difficult to justify (and my kids could consume the entire jar in record breaking time.) An apple with a spoonful of almond butter is one of my favorite snacks and I’m excited about all of the possibilities now that I know how easy it is to make it myself!

The recipe for this Cinnamon Maple Almond Butter is from the Oh She Glows cookbook that I scooped up recently from Costco.  Its full of some amazingly delicious, vegan recipes and includes everything from Breakfast to dessert and all meals in between!

This recipe costs roughly $5 to make and yields almost 400ml

The only thing I would do differently next time is to omit the chia seeds so the texture remains closer to the almond butter that I’m familiar with.

Cinnamon Maple Almond Butter

• 2 1/4 cups raw almonds
• 2 tbsp. pure maple syrup
• 2 tsp coconut oil
• 2 tbsp. hemp hearts
• 2 tbsp. chia seeds
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• sea salt (to taste)

Preheat the oven to 300 degrees and line a baking sheet with parchment paper.

Toss the almonds with the maple syrup so they are evenly coated and spread evenly onto the lined pan.

bake the almonds for 20-25 minutes or until they smell good and toasted!

Cool almonds on the pan.

Once cooled, add almonds to a food processor and process for 5 minutes, scraping down the edge of the bowl as needed.

add the coconut oil and continue to process for another 3-5 minutes or until the almond butter has a smooth texture.  Add the remaining ingredients and continue to process until smooth.

Store your almond butter in a glass jar with a good lid and store in the fridge.  It should last over a month (or maybe not…it’s delicious!)

Enjoy!

DIY Coconut Butter and Incredible Coconut Butter Truffles

Until recently, I didn’t even know that coconut butter existed.

Over Easter I was making a Raw Avocado “Cheesecake” and the recipe not only called for coconut oil, but also coconut butter…after a trip to my local health foods shop, I had a $14 small jar of sweet, rich, melt in your mouth, delicious coconut butter!

After a little bit of research (pinterest) I discovered that coconut butter is nothing more than pureed coconut.

Easy enough right?

I started out with 16 oz of organic, unsweetened, dried shredded coconut (which yields about 2 cups of coconut butter) and the cost was only about $4

This is definitely a job for a really good food processor.  The process took about 12 minutes in my kitchen aid food processor

 

after about 8 minutes, the coconut mixture became very runny but still had quite a bit of texture to it.  I added a tbsp. of coconut oil to help smooth it out and continued to process for an additional 4 minutes (12 minutes in total)

Pour the liquefied coconut butter into a jar or container and let sit at room temperature until it solidifies.

I strongly recommend washing out your equipment ASAP as once the coconut solidifies its really not super easy to clean.

And now for Truffles…

I think I can say that these dreamy little bites are my new favourite treat!  They have a rich, buttery texture, melt in your mouth and they aren’t super sweet.  They are pretty much perfect and the flavour possibilities are endless!

The original recipe for these orange truffles comes from My Whole Food Life and I encourage you to follow the link and view the original recipe and instructions there as I’ve switched it up a bit by using only 1 tbsp maple syrup, the zest of an orange in lieu of extract, 1 1 tsp vanilla and a splash of spiced rum.   The creamy orange centres have been dipped in a mixture of 1/2 cup dark chocolate chips, melted with 1 tbsp. coconut oil.

Orange Coconut Butter Truffles

• 1 cup coconut butter (homemade using the recipe above, or storebought)
• 2 small navel oranges, peeled and sliced
• zest of 1 navel orange
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tbsp. maple syrup
• splash (about 1 tbsp.) spiced rum *optional

Combine ingredients in a food processor and pulse until smooth.  I haven’t attempted these in a blender but I’m sure they’d work just fine.  just be cautious not to over mix.

Chill the mixture for about 30 minutes.

Using a small cookies scoop, or a small spoon, scoop balls onto a parchment lined pan. Using my smallest cookie scoop, I was able to yield 20 chocolates.

Chill in the fridge of freezer for another 30 minutes until they feel solid enough to dip into chocolate.

While the coconut butter balls are chilling, melt the chocolate with the coconut oil.

Dip chocolates and place on parchment lined baking sheet and chill until the chocolate is firm.

(same recipe, just mixed with strawberries rather than oranges)

Store in the fridge until ready to share!

Change (and a Fantastic Carrot Raisin Bran Muffin)

It’s been more than a year since I last posted here and since then SO much has changed!

To keep the story short and sweet, I’ve traded in the butter, the refined sugars and the white flours for healthier alternatives.  I’ve also traded in my couch sitting days for half marathons, training at the gym, and a way better, healthy, active lifestyle and life has never been better!

I’ll share a little bit more about that in a future post but for now, I’ll just share muffins!

Healthy whole wheat muffins filled with bran, bananas, carrots, coconut and raisins.  I often add protein powder to the mix to make these a complete snack and at my house, they’ve been kid approved many times over.

If you use really ripe bananas, you can reduce the maple syrup, or leave it out completely.  It really just depends on how sweet you want these muffins to be.  If you’re used to baking with a lot of sugar, you may find that these are lacking in the sweet department so adjust sweetener as necessary.

I also like to use my blender to whip the wet ingredients together, but a hand mixer will do just as well.

Carrot Raisin Bran Muffins makes 12

• 1.5 cups almond milk
• 2 bananas
• 4 tbsp. maple syrup
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 2 eggs OR 2 egg whites
• 2 tbsp. coconut oil
• 1 cup wheat bran
• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 tsp salt
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• pinch of nutmeg
• 1 cup grated carrots (about 3 small carrots)
• 1/2 cup unsweetened shredded coconut
• 1/2 cup raisins
• *optional* 4 scoops vanilla protein powder

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and have an oven rack placed in the top third of the oven (you’ll get a nicer muffin top!)

In a blender, combine the almond milk, bananas, eggs, coconut oil, vanilla, maple syrup, bran, and protein powder (if using)

blend well

In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt and spices

make a well in the dry ingredients and pour in the blended mixture.  fold together being mindful not to over mix.

fold in the grated carrot. coconut and raisins.

Scoop batter evenly into 12 greased or lined muffin tins and bake 15-20 minutes or until the tops spring back when gently touched.

Enjoy!

The Best, Most Versatile MUFFIN Recipe You Will Ever Need!

I owe this recipe to my very bestest friend on the planet, Angie!

I’m not sure where the recipe originally came from, but we’ve done a bit of tweaking and in the past 6 months it’s been just about the only muffin recipe I’ve used, and I use it A LOT.  With only two tablespoons of oil (coconut oil is great!), and a reasonably small amount of sugar (coconut sugar also works quite well here), you can feel pretty good about serving these up to your littles!

Today I’ve made raspberry, chocolate chip, spelt muffins with oats and bran and they are delicious!  I used frozen raspberries and busted them up a bit so the muffins didn’t end up mushy inside from large berries.

You can easily swap out the flours, add purees, chopped fruits or nuts, chocolate, grated zucchini, carrots or apples, the possibilities are really quite endless.

Muffins

• 2 cups of flour  (use flour of your choice)
• 3/4 cup sugar (you can most definitely use less sugar here, and use whatever sugar you like best)
• 1 cup other dry ingredients such as oats or bran
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1 tsp baking soda
• 3/4 tsp salt
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon (optional)
• 1 cup buttermilk
• 2 eggs
• 2 tbsp. oil
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1 – 1 1/2 cups of add ins (grated fruit or veg,mashed bananas and chocolate, berries, raisins, nuts, seeds etc)

Preheat the oven to 400 degrees and spray a 12 well muffin tin with non stick spray.

Mix together the dry ingredients in a large bowl.

In a large measuring cup, mix together the buttermilk, eggs, oil and vanilla.  If you are using pureed fruit, mix it into the buttermilk mixture.

Stir your “add in” ingredients into the dry mixture.  Make a well in the middle of the dry ingredients and pour the buttermilk mixture into the well.  Using a rubber spatula, fold and stir until everything is mixed together.   Scoop batter into the prepared muffin tins and bake in the top 1/3 of the oven for 15-22 minutes or until muffins are done.

Enjoy!

3 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies

It is with a little bit of sadness I bid farewell to the Secret Recipe Club this month.

Over the past few years I have been a part of this group where I get assigned a new blog each month and browse through their wonderful recipes and choose a recipe to bake and share on my own blog.  Life sometimes feels a bit hectic lately and I feel like my blog isn’t very high up on the priority list as far as completing things in a timely manner goes.

So a big thank you to all of the SRC members that have baked and shared recipes from my blog and to all of those bloggers that have inspired me!

Enjoy a cookie on me!

My SRC assigned blog for October was Cheese Curds in Paradise.

I was mulling over which pumpkin cookie I was going to bake and as I was scrolling through I came across 3 ingredient Peanut butter cookies.  Everything I needed, I had on hand and the recipe looked like it whipped up pretty quickly.  I was hoping for a chunky cookie, similar to the ones that Ashley made but my cookies came out a bit flat.  I’m thinking maybe it’s because I used regular peanut butter isn’t of the good natural stuff?!?  Regardless, still a good super easy (and gluten free) recipe!

3 Ingredient Peanut Butter Cookies recipe from Cheese Curds In Paradise

• 1 cup natural peanut butter
• 3/4 cups of sugar
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup chocolate chips (optional, I used chocolate sprinkles as I was out of chips!)

Pre heat the oven to 350 degrees and line a pan with parchment or silpat.

Beat together the peanut butter and the sugar until light and fluffy, add the egg and beat well.

Stir in the Chocolate chips.

drop by teaspoonfuls onto the prepared baking pan and bake for 8-10 minutes or until the edges begin to slightly brown.

Cool cookies on pan for 10 minutes before removing to cool completely.

Enjoy!

Muddy Buddies/Sweet and Delicious Crunchy Chex Mix

This stuff definitely deserves the title “betcha can’t eat just one!”

There are so many different ways you can make this sweet chex mix which is often called muddy buddies or puppy chow.    The name throws me off a little bit, I feel like we should just call it sweet and delicious crunchy chex mix 🙂

When searching my Secret Recipe Club assigned blog Jen’s Journey and saw this recipe I knew it was what I wanted to make right away.  Chex cereal that’s coated with white chocolate and then covered in a mix of yellow cake mix, powdered sugar and sprinkles…how can you go wrong?!?

Thanks Jen, for passing on such a keeper!!!

Cake Batter Muddy Buddies recipe from Jen’s Journey

• 5 cups Rice Chex cereal (I went ahead and used the whole box)
• 10 ounces (5 squares) vanilla flavored Almond Bark (I used 2 cups of white chocolate chips)
• ¾ cup yellow cake mix
• ¼ cup powdered sugar
• rainbow sprinkles
• Vegetable oil (optional)

In a large, lidded container (large enough to shake all of the cereal), Measure out the cereal.

In a separate bowl, mix together the cake mix, powdered sugar and sprinkles.  Set aside.

Melt chocolate in a double boiler, I like to use a stainless steel bowl over top of a medium size saucepan with about an inch of simmering water.  Add a tsp of vegetable shortening if you the chocolate is not melting as smoothly as you’d like.

**note** it’s okay to use the microwave to melt your chocolate but I never have success melting white chocolate in the microwave and since it’s a lot to waste, I find it safer to do it on the stovetop

Pour the melted chocolate over the cereal and stir with a rubber non stick spatula until all of the cereal is well coated.

Sprinkle the dry mixture over the chocolate coated cereal, add a lid and shake it up until all of the cereal is coated.

Pour out onto a sheet pan and let set.

Ration it out….or else they may eat the whole batch!

Enjoy!

And don’t forget to check the link below for all of the other SRC creations!

Holy Stromboli! (A pizza dough recipe)

Holy Stromboli!

I would say that I’m an avid pizza maker.  I have quite a few favorite pizza dough recipes that I use on a regular basis for making various pizzas and I’m always excited to try new pizza dough recipes.

I had some leftover chunky sausage studded pasta sauce leftover from dinner and wanted to make a Stromboli (basically rolled up pizza) and since I hadn’t yet decided on a recipe from my Secret Recipe Club assigned blog for August I went ahead and searched The Bad Girl’s Kitchen for a pizza dough recipe and was pleasantly surprised to find one.  My Stromboli is filled with sausage pizza sauce, pepperoni and mozzarella cheese.

This pizza dough is very basic and easy to put together.  It rose well, was super easy to work with and tasted great.  I know I will come back to it in the future.

Pizza Dough (makes enough for 2 pizzas or 2 Stromboli) recipe from The Bad Girl’s Kitchen

• 1 cup of warm water (105-115 F)
• 1 package of active dry yeast
• 1 teaspoon honey
• 2 tablespoons of olive oil
• 3 cups unbleached all purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• cornmeal for sprinkling the pan

In the bowl of a mixer combine the warm water, yeast, honey and olive oil.   Mix in 2 cups the flour and the salt and knead on low speed.  Continue to add the additional cup of flour until you have a dough that’s quite soft but not super sticky.  Knead the dough for 5-8 minutes.

Place dough in a well oiled bowl, cover with plastic wrap and rise until doubled in bulk (about an hour)

Once risen, deflate the dough and divide into two balls.   Roll the dough out into two rectangles, about 9X11″

Top the dough with topping as if dressing a pizza and then roll it up the same style as a cinnamon bun.

Place your rolled pizza onto a pan prepared with parchment paper and sprinkled with cornmeal.   Using a sharp serrated knife, cut slits into the top of the roll.   Repeat with the second piece of dough.

Cover with a tea towel and let rise while the oven preheats to 425 degrees.

Bake Stromboli for 25-30 minutes and the top is golden brown.

Slice and serve.

Enjoy!

Don’t forget to check out the other great SRC recipes from Group B for August by clicking on the linky below!

Blended Banana “Ice Cream”

So calling this Ice cream is a bit of  stretch…

The base of this yummy frozen treat is frozen banana, but once they’re blended up with some cocoa and peanut butter it’s tough to distinguish that you’re actually eating frozen banana puree.  Such a great healthy treat for the kids and my kids LOVE it!

We’ve added cocoa and peanut butter to our banana mixture but you could most certainly leave it plain, add chocolate chips or any other combination you’d like!

I’ve made my banana “ice cream” using a food processor, I found it needed a little bit of liquid to really get it smoothed out but I imagine if you were using a vitamix you may not need to add any liquid at all?

Frozen Banana “Ice Cream” Dessert  makes about 6 small ice cream cones.

• 4-5 bananas, sliced and frozen
• 3 spoonfuls of cocoa powder (or to taste)
• 1 heaping spoonful of peanut butter
• almond milk (just enough to get it smoothed out in the food processor or blender) *you can use any liquid you choose, I wanted to keep ours dairy free.

Put everything into a food processor and pulse to break down the bananas.  Add liquid if needed.  Pulse until you’ve achieved a smooth, soft serve consistency.

 

Serve in bowls or cones.

Enjoy!