I used to work at Dunkin' Donuts a lifetime ago and had donuts for dinner every day. Not once did I get tired of them. My favorite? Well, that's kind of hard to decide because I love them all, but I always go back to the chocolate glazed. On just about any given day you can bet I've got a hankerin' for them, but up until recently I was limited by the scarcity of nearby donut shops. Now, of course, there are more donut shops in this town than my figure can afford to know about, but I have since mastered the art of making my own donuts whenever I desire them. That is probably a lot more dangerous for my diet, but awfully satisfying to my sweet tooth.
I tried this recipe for the first time today and was thrilled with the similarity to my favorite little Munchkins. These are baked, not fried, so they are presumably a little healthier, but when you're eating donuts, who the heck is counting? This recipe makes a ton, so feel free to half it if you don't like donuts quite as much as me.
Glazed Chocolate Donut Holes
Prep time: 10 min Bake time: 15 min
Makes 48
2 cups flour
1 cup sugar
1/2 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp baking soda
1/4 tsp salt
2 large eggs, beaten
3/4 cup milk
1/4 cup plain yogurt (or sour cream)
2 tsp vanilla extract
3 Tbs unsalted butter, melted
Glaze:
1 3/4 cups confectioners' sugar
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
1 tsp lemon juice
Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Spray two 24-count mini muffin pans with nonstick spray.
Sift together the flour, sugar, cocoa powder, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl. Sifting is important; you want to remove any clumps of cocoa.
In a medium bowl, whisk the beaten eggs, milk, yogurt, and vanilla together until completely smooth. Whisk in the melted butter until combined. Slowly fold the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, careful not to overmix. Over-handling this batter will make your donut holes dense and tough.
Spoon batter into the mini muffin tins, only about 3/4 of the way full. Be careful not to overfill or your donut holes will end up looking more like mushrooms! Bake for 10 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean. Do not overbake them; they burn easily. Allow the donuts to cool for 5 minutes in the pan and then transfer to a wire rack to cool for 5 more minutes before glazing.
While the donuts are cooling, make the glaze by sifting the confectioner's sugar into a medium bowl. Stir in the milk, vanilla, and lemon juice until smooth. Add more confectioners' sugar to make it thicker if desired; add more milk to make it thinner. Dunk each slightly warm donut hole into the glaze and place on a wire rack on top of a large baking sheet to let the glaze drip down. Let glaze harden before serving--if you can wait that long!
69 calories per donut hole. Click here for more nutritional info and shopping list!
It's almost Valentine's Day, and that means my 11th wedding anniversary is fast approaching. If you've been following my blog since last year, you may remember that my 10th anniversary was slightly underwhelming. I wanted to go to Hawaii; we went to Red Lobster instead. I have a wonderful husband, but a romantic he is not!
This year, I've lowered my expectations a little; in fact, I'm pretty sure we'll be eating Valentine's dinner at 5 Guys. There were a couple great things about last Valentine's Day: a kid-free weekend, a romantic movie, and some super yummy coconut shrimp and biscuits. This year, I intend to duplicate at least two of those experiences, and you can too, with my coconut shrimp recipe found here and the cheddar biscuit recipe below. These biscuits are cheesy, garlicky clouds of addictiveness and they probably went a long way towards helping me keep Mr. Romantic satisfied for the last 11 years!
Copy Cat Red Lobster Cheddar Bay Biscuits
Prep time: 5 min Bake time: 20 min
Serves 12
2 ½ cups Bisquick baking mix
3/4 cup cold milk
4 Tbs cold butter
1/4 tsp garlic powder
1 ½ cups grated cheddar cheese
Topping:
2 Tbs butter, melted
1/4 tsp dried parsley flakes
1/2 tsp garlic salt
Preheat your oven to 400 degrees.
Whisk together Bisquick and garlic powder in a medium size bowl. Grate butter over the bowl and gently combine by hand. Do not over-mix. Add cheddar cheese and milk. Mix by hand just until combined.
Drop ¼-cup portions of the dough onto an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake for 10-15 minutes or until the tops of the biscuits begin to turn light brown.
Combine topping ingredients in a small bowl. Brush over tops of biscuits. Return to oven for 5 minutes or till golden brown.
217 calories per serving. Click here for more nutritional info and shopping list!
Have I ever mentioned how much I hate winter? Yeah, maybe a couple times. This winter has really been a doozy for just about everybody. My hometown has like 76 inches of snow on the ground, and even here, 700 miles south in Burlington, NC, Rachel got 2 1/2 snow days last week. Of course, we only got 1/2 an inch of snow, but for North Carolinians, that's a big deal! Being a summer-lover myself, I am desperate for some warm weather and sunshine. Unfortunately, summer is still a long way away, but at least I can have a taste of summer with this incredibly refreshing fruit dip. I served it with some pathetic, white-bellied winter strawberries and it made them taste great, so I can only imagine how fabulous this would be on some halfway decent produce. Heck, if I can't find any good fruit to dip in it, I'd try graham crackers or Nilla wafers or just about anything I could use as a scoop!
Creamy Yogurt Fruit Dip
Total time: 5 min
Serves 6
1/2 cup heavy cream
1/2 cup plain yogurt
3 Tbs honey
1/4 tsp cinnamon
In a medium bowl, combine yogurt, honey, and cinnamon.
Whip cream to desired consistency (I prefer stiff peak stage* for this dish.) Gently fold into yogurt mixture.
Serve as a dip or between layers of sliced fruit for a beautiful trifle.
111 calories per serving. Click here for more nutritional info and shopping list!
*To test your cream for stiff peaks: stop your beater, pull it straight out of the cream and turn it upside down. If the cream forms a stiff peak that doesn't flop over, you've reached the stiff peak stage!
Wouldn't life be nicer if we all just got along? If there were no personality conflicts, no misunderstandings, no differences of opinion? Sadly, neither humans, nor food, always go well together, and once they clash, sometimes there's no salvaging it. I'm an adventurous chef, and I'm willing to try all kinds of food combinations that might, or might not, turn out okay, but some days you just want a dish that you know is gonna be good. This simple skillet meal is in perfect harmony--all the flavors play well together--and I appreciate that kind of peace, even if it is just amongst ingredients!
Creamy Spinach and Sausage Pasta
Prep time: 5 min Cook time: 20 min
Serves 4
1 (13 oz) pkg smoked sausage, sliced
1 medium onion, diced
1 (14.5 oz) can diced tomatoes w/chiles
2 cups chicken broth
8 oz egg noodles
3 cups fresh spinach
1 cup shredded Monterrey jack cheese
1 green onion, sliced
Saute the sausage in a large skillet over medium heat until nicely browned. Drain off the excess fat.
Add onion to the skillet and continue to saute until softened. Add the can of diced tomatoes with chiles and the chicken broth. Stir to combine and dissolve any browned bits off of the bottom of the skillet.
Add the uncooked pasta to the skillet. Cover and allow the mixture to come to a boil. Once it reaches a boil, turn the heat down to low and let it simmer for about ten minutes, or until the pasta is tender. Stir once or twice while the pasta cooks to keep it from sticking.
Stir in the fresh spinach, one cup at a time, until wilted. Keep the heat on while adding the spinach so the liquid will continue to simmer and thicken.
Sprinkle the shredded cheese on top, replace the lid, and let it sit for a few minutes, or until the cheese is melted. Sprinkle with green onion.
656 calories per serving. Click here for more nutritional info and shopping list!
I'm supposed to be on a diet. Problem is, I have very low self control. All it takes is a free Saturday and a good-looking Pinterest recipe to blow my whole week's worth of effort. Actually, sometimes all it takes is a poorly-timed food commercial, but that makes me sound really bad! I have been trying hard not to indulge myself in all the yummy recipes I run across (and trying to avoid Pinterest altogether) but when I saw how reasonable the calorie count was on these little beauties, and realized that I could be eating them in about 10 minutes, yeah, the self control was out the door. I was really skeptical at first that these would taste like a donut and not like a biscuit, but they were great! I coated them with cinnamon sugar as the recipe says, but I think they would also taste fabulous with a glaze or a flavored icing. I'll try that next time and let you know how it turns out. Just like at Krispy Kreme, these are best when they're warm, but they were still good several hours later. Just ask Rachel - I made them around 9am, but she didn't get out of the bed and try one till 1 o'clock! She's lucky there were some left!
Biscuit Donuts
Prep time: 5 min Cook time: 5 min
Serves 10
1 can biscuits (any kind, just not flaky layers)
3/4 cup sugar
1 Tbs cinnamon
1/4 cup margarine
Vegetable oil for frying
Pour oil into skillet to the depth of a little less than 1/2 an inch and heat on medium to medium high for about five minutes.
In a bowl, melt margarine. In a separate bowl, combine cinnamon and sugar. Cut the center out of each biscuit (a plastic bottle cap works great for this.)
Drop dough into hot oil, watching carefully and turning when golden, less than a minute per side. Once donuts are golden on both sides, remove to a draining rack (see example here.) Repeat until all dough is cooked, including donut holes.
Dip both sides of each donut into melted margarine, then press both sides into cinnamon sugar mixture. Serve warm.
159 calories per serving. Click here for more nutritional info and shopping list!
