National Donut Day!

Oh happy day! It's National Donut Day today, and I began my celebration last night around 8pm with my first batch of donuts...EVER.  No no! Not my first batch to ingest.  I've eaten my fair share of donuts in my lifetime, so I'm sure I've reached "batches" by now.  I'm talking about my first ever attempt to MAKE donuts.  Another fun adventure in my quest to be the ultimate, all-knowing baker extraordinaire.

Lucky for me, I quickly learned that donuts can in fact be baked, not fried.  My wonderful boyfriend ran off to Bed Bath & Beyond to buy two mini donut pans while I began scouring my favorite food blogs for recipes for my first ever donut-making attempt. I went with a blueberry-lemon cake donut, and drizzled a lemon glaze all over.  And I mean ALL. OVER.  This was to ensure maximum caloric intake, which I think was only mildly successful.  Had I fried those bad boys up (truth be told, I thought about it!), maybe I'd be singing a different tune. But instead I went for enjoyable, not heart-stopping.

Lucky for me, I started with some beautiful raw materials.  The blueberries were fresh and sweet and the Meyer lemons were bright and smelled amazing!

I plated them to show you the great color - and so I could eat a few while I baked the donuts!

I halved the blueberries (so the juice would spread) and doubled up on the amount of them for some ultimate juicy blueberry flavor...

And had a lot of fun using my new donut pans!  I'm going to turn everything I bake into a donut shape now, just because I can!

Oh wow. Look at those juicy blueberries oozing sweetness all over the the cakey dough!

They sat in the pan for a while to cool and turn a perfect golden brown, which prepped them for the lemon glaze to be poured all over them. And I triple taste tested the lemon glaze to make sure I did it right. Tough job!

And there you have it folks! Gooey hands? Check. Happy mouth? Double check!

Oh - and below you can see one of the beautiful strawberry donuts I made as well! The recipe suggested to fill the donut pan half way, but I ended up filling the donut pan a little more for the batch of strawberry donuts to see if I could get them a little bigger.  In fact, I'd say I nearly filled it to the top.  This made them super fluffy and helped them take on a more donut-like shape, which I preferred.

Yum is right!  Did you do anything fun to celebrate National Donut Day? Hopefully each of you grabbed something deliciously wonderful from one of the many donut shops offering promotions for this patriotic and tasty holiday. And if not, it's not too late! You've still got a few hours left to channel your inner-glutton and grab a few glazed nom noms! 

Check back early next week for more baking attempts from me, and possibly some business news. 

Until then, do-nut worry & be happy!

Summer Strawberries & Banana Jokes

It's a slippery slope when you start stealing your dad's jokes. And I'll be a monkey's uncle if I didn't have four overly ripe bananas sitting on my counter Friday afternoon. So I got to thinking, and usually thinking leads to baking...

I went a little nuts this weekend. And by nuts, I mean fruits. I went a little fruits this weekend! I got my new shipment of Bake It Pretty goods - cupcake liners, striped paper straws & a little heart shaped cookie cutter - and I was itching for a weekend of solid baking. After a run with Justin and our Bo dog Saturday morning, I strolled over to the West End Farmer's Market and grabbed myself two pints of beautiful, sweet, bright red strawberries from Delvin Farms. I also grabbed a couple of Olive & Sinclair chocolate bars from The Produce Place because I was feeling kind of frisky. And by frisky, I mean hungry. And by hungry I mean...well, you get the point.

You can see the beautiful Bake It Pretty box that arrived on my doorstep! I love how quickly I receive their shipments, and how perfectly wrapped and packaged everything always is. Not to mention, their liners are so perfect and the color stays so well. I'm a big fan. Big. Huge!

As a side note, I couldn't resist posting this adorable, green strawberry. I mean look at it, it's ADORABLE.

Oh, Delvin Farms, you sure know how to make this girl happy...

So it began with Saturday night's dinner. I had fresh strawberries on the brain, and I had just conjured up a loaf of banana bread topped with Olive & Sinclair chocolate chunks. Without hesitation, I threw strawberries into my avocado, spinach & basil salad and thought, "Those would look damn fine in some cupcakes..." During dinner my mind wandered to strawberry cupcakes and warm banana bread.

Here's a close-up of the warm, moist banana bread fresh out of the oven!

So naturally, I baked strawberry cupcakes before bed. Because that's what any rational girl would do! In my excitement from baking the hand pies last week and the banana bread and strawberry cupcakes the night before, I decided that Sunday morning I was definitely going to top those cupcakes with strawberry meringue buttercream frosting.

With a lot (too much?) of energetic morning jumps and squirms of joy, I began separating eggs, measuring sugar, and getting a double boiler going. So far so good. I whisked and I whipped and I even did a little happy dance as I saw the meringue fluff up before my very eyes. Joy! But then a wee little needle deflated my ever-growing baking balloon as I slowly added in the strawberries and watched my meringue get too glossy and then boom. It was all over.  No more fluffy, whipped, marshmallow-like goodness. Just shiny, separated strawberry goop. Boyfriend liked it despite it being completely unappealing (visually), but I knew it wouldn't do. I was crushed, but I whipped up a quick batch of strawberry buttercream and vowed to try the meringue frosting again soon.

 As it turns out, the cupcakes were a pretty big hit!

I also made a batch of triple chocolate cookies which were amazing! But those pictures turned out kind of hideous, and honestly I'd rather not go into detail with what a bad picture of a chocolate cookie looks like.

Stay tuned for this weekend's post, as I'm going to attempt the meringue buttercream again and hope for more success. But not before I bake donuts! That's right folks, it's National Donut Day on Friday. So aside from heading to Krispy Kreme and/or Dunkin' to snag yourself a free donut, be sure to check out Friday's blog post! It's your patriotic duty!