Saturday Morning Donuts!

Back at Thanksgiving our Mom took us out for the "Black Friday Sales", one of our stops was at Bed, Bath and Beyond! Upon browsing the cooking/baking section we came across these donut pans. Our little siblings LOVE donuts but we don't buy or make them that often because it involves that dreaded process of FRYING;-) When we saw these pans for baked donuts we could not resist, we just HAD to buy them. Upon buying new kitchen tools you sometimes forget that you bought them, well that's what happened to us, we made donuts the day we got the pans but had not made any since!!! Last Friday evening Hannah announced that she was going to make donuts for our Saturday morning breakfast. This time around upon making them we used a different recipe. If you like pumpkin and you have a donut pan that you always forget to use, and might have forgot that you bought it like we did , try this recipe out;-)

Baked Pumpkin Donuts

Yield: 12 donuts

• 2 cups whole wheat flour
• 1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon baking soda
• 1 teaspoon nutmeg
• 2 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/3 cup brown sugar
• 1 cup canned pumpkin
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoon milk
• ¼ cup unsalted butter, room temperature
• 1 tsp. vanilla extract
• cinnamon sugar for dusting
• melted butter for dunking in before coating in cinnamon sugar

1. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees. Spray two 6-count donut pans with non-stick cooking spray (or alternatively spray a 12-cup muffin tin with cooking spray). Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, baking soda, nutmeg and cinnamon in a small bowl. In a stand mixer or medium sized bowl and hand mixer cream together the brown sugar, pumpkin, eggs, milk, butter and vanilla extract on medium speed until the butter is well incorporated.

2. With your mixer on medium low speed, slowly add the dry sifted ingredients to the wet mixture. Mix until just barely combined. Do not over-mix.

3. Scoop pumpkin batter into a large Ziploc bag, pushing batter down towards one end of the bag. Snip the end of the bag with scissors and fill each donut mold with the batter. Be sure to wipe any excess batter that may have gotten around the edge of the mold or on the center "hole".

4. Bake for 6 – 8 minutes or until the exterior springs back when touched. Remove from pan and dunk in melted butter then in your cinnamon sugar!

It's a BUG!

In my last post I mentioned that it was our little sister Kathryn's 8th birthday. Upon her request I (Esther) made her this very cute lady-bug cake. It was such fun to create and not to complicated to put together! I thought it was just too cute not to post a picture of:-)

What could be more special then this for breakfast???

Last week Kathryn lost a tooth, so for a special surprise we made her a very special breakfast. Crepes, Strawberry Nutella stuffed crepes to be exact! A little sweet for breakfast but would could be more fitting for such a sweet little sister!?!? Upon arriving at the table she had a rather sleepy look upon her face but after describing what we were making her they quickly opened and she eagerly waited for her breakfast. I think she liked them very much because she requested them for her birthday breakfast tomorrow! This was my first time making them, it was fun after the first few odd shaped ones......they tasted great but looked a little lopsided:-) By the time I had finished using the batter I had finally gotten the hang of it and they actually were round shaped! Since making them once I think tomorrow should be much easier when making them for her birthday breakfast. The only thing that is missing is fresh whipped cream, I think it could use some to cut back the sweetness a bit. But that's just my preference!

Sweet Breakfast or Dessert Crepes

Ingredients:

4 eggs, lightly beaten

1 1/3 cups milk

2 tablespoons butter, melted

1 cup all-purpose flour

2 tablespoons sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions:

In large bowl, whisk together eggs, milk, melted butter, flour, sugar, and salt until smooth. Heat a medium-sized skillet or crepe pan over medium heat. Grease pan with a small amount of butter or oil. Using a serving spoon or small ladle, spoon about 4 tablespoons crepe batter into hot pan, tilting the pan so that bottom surface is evenly coated. Cook over medium heat, 1 to 2 minutes on a side, or until golden brown. Serve immediately; store leftovers in air-tight container. Makes about eight Crêpes.

Sliced strawberries and Nutella for stuffing!

The aim and final end of all music should be none other than the glory of God and the refreshment of the soul.

-Johannes Sebastian Bach-

The perfect afternoon snack!

So what do you make yourself after you get back from your sweaty afternoon workout? A smoothie of course!!! What could be more refreshing?!?! This smoothie recipe I came up with about a week ago has all the right ingredients to make sure you are fueling your muscles after winding down from your workout. After trying this recipe you will not want to go back to your original smoothie because this one is so much more creamy then any other you could imagine, the secret ingredient.......cottage cheese, that's right you read me right, cottage cheese! For me cottage cheese is something that is not on my favorite "foods" list but I was needing to eat it because of the extra protein content, after eating it plain a few times I had this brilliant idea, why not put it in a smoothie just like you would yogurt? There both dairy products right, so why not? After pouring it into my cup I a little hesitantly gave it a try, to my surprise it was so creamy, it almost tasted like a frosty and no I'm not joking! Just make sure to blend it well so you don't get those cottage type chunks:-) Enjoy!



Blackberry Peach Smoothie
Serves:1

1/2 cup low-fat cottage cheese
1/2-3/4 cup frozen blackberries
1/2 frozen peach
1/2-3/4 cup water
Put all ingredients into blender and blend on high till very smooth, about 1 minute.

Yeah, coffee wins!

Thank you all for voting on the poll last week, Hannah and I are so glad that there are other coffee lovers out there!

The final results were:

Coffee drinkers-12

None coffee drinkers-5

Sometimes coffee drinkers:-)...8!

Brown Sugar Apple Cheesecake

This recipe and picture have been sitting in our draft box for about a month, finally I have found the time to post it! This recipe does take some time to make so make sure you give your self about 1hour, though it is time consuming it is REALLY worth it. I think Hannah and I have mentioned before that we do not really get why people like cheese cake, we both agreed it is just to cheesy......if that make sense:-) But this cheese cake changed our option by a mile, I think that we do really like cheese cake just more gourmet cheese cake. So if you are one of those cheese cake haters, give this one a try and I'm sure it will change your opinion on the subject too!

Brown-Sugar Apple Cheesecake

From Baking from my home to yours by Dorie Greenspan

For the crust

• 2 cups graham cracker crumbs
• 2 tsp ginger
• 2 Tbsp brown sugar
• 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 1/2 stick unsalted butter, melted

For the apples

• 1/2 stick unsalted butter
• 3 large apples, peeled, cored, and cut into eights
• 2 Tbsp light brown sugar

For the filling

• 3 (8 ounce) packages cream cheese
• 3/4 cup light brown sugar
• 6 Tbsp sugar
• 3 Tbsp apple cider
• 2 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 2 tsp ground cinnamon
• 3 eggs
• 3/4 cup sour cream
• 1/3 cup heavy cream

To make the crust, first butter the bottom and sides of a 10″ spring form pan.

Break up the graham crackers and put them in your food processor, pulsing until you have 2 cups worth of fine crumbs. Stir in the ginger.

Melt the butter and pour it over the graham cracker crumbs, stirring until the mixture is moist and crumbly. Press the crumbs into the bottom of the pan and up the sides, as far as it will go. Put the pan in the freezer while you preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

When the oven has been preheated, remove the pan from the freezer and wrap the bottom in aluminum foil. Place the pan on a baking sheet and bake for 10 minutes or until the crust is lightly browned. Cool on a rack while you make the filling and cook the apples.

To cook the apples, melt the butter in a large skillet over medium-high heat. Pour in the apple slices and cook until golden brown. Sprinkle the apples with the brown sugar and cook a few minutes longer.Put a pot of water on to boil and get a roasting pan large enough to hold the spring form pan ready. To make the filling, beat the cream cheese on medium speed, scraping down the sides of the bowl often, for about 4 minutes. Add the sugars and beat an additional 2 minutes.

Beat in the cider, vanilla, and cinnamon. Reduce the speed to low and beat in the eggs one at a time. Then, beat in the sour cream and heavy cream until well-combined.

To assemble, pour about a third of the batter into the crust.

Spoon the apples on top of the poured batter.Cover with the remaining batter.Place the spring form pan on the roasting pan, and then pour in enough boiling water to come halfway up the sides of the spring form pan.Bake the cheesecake for 45 minutes, and then cover the cheesecake with a foil tent to prevent excessive browning. Bake an additional 45 minutes to an hour. If the center still isn't quite set when you remove it from the oven, that’s okay. Transfer the cheesecake to a cooling rack, and let it cool to room temperature. Refrigerate for at least 6 ours; overnight is best. When ready to serve, run a knife around the edges of the pan to loosen the crust. Then, open the latch on the pan and remove the sides.Serve plain, or with a dollop of whipped cream.