Double Chocolate Baked Doughnuts

The other night I was craving chocolate. I was also extremely bored and it was still pretty early in the evening so I decided to kill two birds with one stone and make something to satisfy my craving. After a quick internet search I found the solution to my problem - double chocolate baked doughnuts. Ever since I made my first batch of cinnamon sugar doughnuts I've been waiting for the right time to try some more.

I found a good looking recipe on the blog, Milk & Honey. These turned out to be a great solution for a weeknight baking endeavor. They came together really quickly and I had all of the ingredients in the cupboard. I did hold myself back a little and decided I'd only make half the recipe. It was a pretty easy recipe to cut in half. A quick tip - when I half a recipe that only calls for one egg, I just use the white. I figure it's probably about half the egg and the healthier half to boot. Alternatively, you could whisk up a whole egg and measure out half of it. 

Ready for the oven

 

I had the same problem with these as I did with the cinnamon sugar doughnuts. I had a really hard time getting them out of the pan. You can see a few chunks out of a couple of them where I had to pry them out of the pan. It might also have something to do with my impatience. I tried to get these out of the pan ASAP thinking that would keep them from sticking. It probably hurt more than it helped. I really need to invest in some cooking spray. 

The glaze for these doughnuts was super easy too. The recipe calls for melting the chocolate chips, corn syrup, butter, and vanilla in a double boiler on the stove. Instead, I just threw it all in a glass mixing bowl and melted it in the microwave. Take it out and stir every 30 seconds until everything is melted. Simple as that. The doughnuts were dipped in the glaze and sprinkled with different toppings. I always have sprinkles on hand and noticed I had a few toffee bit in the cupboard so I used those too. 

Toffee bits

Sprinkles make me happy

 

These were delicious. The texture was lighter and they tasted more like the "real thing" that you'd get at a coffee shop than the cinnamon doughnuts did. The glaze had good flavor and wasn't too sweet. I would certainly make these again. They became a bit messy because I threw them in a container while the glaze was still pretty soft. Like I said, I'm impatient. 

Do you ever throw something together to satisfy a craving?

Baby Shower Cupcakes

A few weeks ago I was asked to make cupcakes for a mega baby shower we were having at the office. There is most definitely something in the water there...at one point this year 9 of 140ish employees were pregnant. There are so many babies on the way that the shower was for three of the first time moms-to-be. I was given free reign over what I wanted to make. That's a lot of pressure. I wanted to go with a pink and blue theme and decided to make strawberry and blueberry cupcakes. I like to give options when I'm feeding a lot of people. 

I didn't get entirely creative. Given the number of cupcakes I was making, I didn't want to start off with a completely new recipe in case it failed miserably. I made the same base as the rhubarb cupcakes I've described a couple of times before. Instead of rhubarb I added blueberries to one batch and diced strawberries to the other. Simple as that!

The plan was to make the cooked flour frosting I love so much and use blue for the blueberry and pink for the strawberry. Logical, right? The only problem was that I had MAJOR issues with the frosting. I'm not sure what happened but when I added the butter to the cooked flour base it completely separated and got really oily and gross looking. It was really too bad it didn't work out because it still tasted delicious. In the end I had to run out to the GT Boutique down the street to clear them out of icing sugar so I could make Martha's fluffy frosting. A super basic and delicious standby. Then, of course, I ran into another issue. The No Name butter I was using was super yellow and my blue and pink frosting turned out to more like mint green and salmon. Sigh. In the end, they were still pastel colors and baby shower appropriate, but I knew that they didn't look like I'd envisioned.

No one else seemed to mind the colors. I got a lot of compliments from my co-workers, which was nice. It's always good to hear others like what you're doing. 

Coming up next - I'm attempting my first allergy-friendly baking this coming weekend. Wheat, nut and dairy-free. This should be interesting.

Chocolate Covered Ice Cream Bars

One of the main food sites I follow on a regular basis is Serious Eats. I was introduced by one of my co-workers not too long after starting my current job. It's a great general food site/blog. They do reviews, recipes, advice, etc. There are lots of sub-sections of the site and they recently started up a new one - Serious Eats Sweets. One of the new features is a weekly challenge of sorts. They determine the theme and readers can submit pictures of recipes they've made that fall within that theme. I'm going to try to keep up with the challenge for as long as I can, either submitting pictures of things I've already made or making new recipes to fall within the theme. The new slideshows are posted on the site every Thursday. Last week I was able to submit a picture of my rhubarb cupcakes as part of the Share Your Sweets Summer Desserts feature. 

The theme for this week is "Cool Off". I chose to make a recipe I'd seen on the site the week before - homemade chocolate covered ice cream bars. Mmm. Pretty simple...melt some chocolate with a bit of oil to keep it liquid, cut up a pint of ice cream, stick in some sticks, dip in chocolate and freeze. The recipe I used can be found here. I did make a slight modification. I only had a large bag of chocolate chips so I used 9 oz of chocolate and 5 tablespoons of canola oil for the chocolate dip.

Just like the ice cream sandwiches, start with the best

Cut off the bottom of the carton

Cookie dough and brownies

Slice the pint into 4 and add sticks. I had to use skewers

Dip in the cooled melted chocolate and decorate (if you want)

In theory, this is a super simple and tasty treat. However, I quickly learned that my freezer isn't cold enough to make the process as easy as it could be. No matter how long I left the slices in there, I couldn't get them to freeze really hard. I think the chocolate process would be a lot easier with solidly frozen ice cream. I also couldn't find food grade popsicle sticks so I tried to make due with two skewers. That didn't work out so well either. The skewers seemed to cut the slices in half. The one ice cream bar pictured is the only one that turned out remotely photo worthy. Although they weren't pretty, they sure are tasty! I would try them again. The combinations you could make are endless. 


What is your favorite ice cream treat on a hot summer day?

And so it begins...

My first blog post! Yay me. I'm new to this whole thing and I really have no idea how I'm going to approach this project. I figured since I'm gearing up towards a few crazy weeks of baking and travel now was as good a time as any to start this thing up. It's something I've been meaning to do for awhile. I guess my aim is to show you what's possible from a teeny tiny apartment kitchen.

There are a few baking challenges heading my way in the next couple of months...

#1 - Cupcake Camp Montreal 

I'm really excited I decided to take on the challenge of CCC Mtl. I'm hoping the award winning cakes I made for CCC Ottawa will stand up to the test in Montreal. Salted Caramel filled Chocolate will live to see another day. This time there's a preliminary tasting round before they even make it to the celebs. I think this time success will be measured by just making it to the "real" judges. I'm wimping out a bit and only making the minumum of 24 + 6 for the judges + 6 for my friends (you're welcome ladies!) because I've also commited to...

#2 - 30+ cupcakes for a friend's daughter's 3rd birthday party

Not a big deal on a normal day but the party happens to be on the same day as CCC. The birthday party cupcakes will just be fun. Fluffy frosting, probably something pink, and lots and lots of sprinkles! This will be the first time I've ever made cupcakes to order. Since there won't technically be money changing hands I think it's fair to still enter myself into the Amateur category in Mtl.

#3 - Holiday Baking Sweatshop 2010 edition

This will be the third year I'm offering to do holiday baking for my co-workers who aren't as comfortable in the kitchen as I am. The first year I didn't think I'd have any interest. Boy was I surprised. I never realized how many people either can't or don't bake. The first year was not much of a money maker. Hundreds of dozens of cookies and about $100 later, I wanted nothing to do with cookies ever again. Last year I improved my business sense and everything went much better. Already this year I've had a few people ask if I'll be doing it all again. Why not? The email will go out this Friday. I'd better brace myself.

So, this first post ended up being much longer than I intended. I guess it's giving you a taste of what you've got to look forward to...the trials and tribulations of baking with 3.3 square feet of counter space (I just measured). There will be many pictures to come in the future. Stay tuned!