Pumpkin Donuts!

I am a big fan of the FX show "Sons of Anarchy"..just love the bad boys on motorcycles! And since my Tuesday viewing pleasure was interrupted I was planning on watching the Friday night rerun. And I was all ready to relax and had my late night latte made but then I needed something sweet as a side. I thought I had pretty much fulfilled my pumpkin taste but decided to make some Pumpkin Donuts.

I bought a mini donut pan last year and it bakes the nicest donuts which are small and only about two bites per donut but the mini donuts are the perfect size for snacking. And there no fuss with frying or cutting out donuts! Please see the below Gadgets that Work for more info on the Mini Donut Pan.

I followed the recipe but did not use Pumpkin Pie Spice and subbed a generous tsp of cinnamon and 1/4 tsp of ginger. And with a pastry bag I piped the donut batter into the donut pan. And when the donuts cooled I drizzled with a simple powdered sugar glaze and they were done in less then an hour.









Baked Pumpkin Donuts
Recipe adapted from RecipeZaar

Donuts:
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup packed brown sugar
1 1/2 tsp baking powder
1 1/2 tsp pumpkin pie spice (I used rounded tsp cinnamon and 1/4 tsp ginger)
1/2 tsp salt
1/4 tsp baking soda
1/2 cup canned pure pumpkin
2 large eggs
1/4 cup milk
1/4 cup butter, softened

Icing:
1 cup sifted powdered sugar
1/4 tsp vanilla extract
3 to 4 tsp milk

Makes about 22 Mini Donuts

1. Preheat oven to 375°F. Grease two baking sheets.

2. Prepare doughnuts: In a medium mixing bowl, stir together flour, brown sugar, baking powder, pumpkin pie spice, salt and baking soda. Add pumpkin, eggs, milk, and butter; beat with an electric mixer on low speed until mixed.

3. Spoon the mixture into a pastry bag fitted with a large star tip with a ½-inch opening. Pipe onto prepared baking sheets in 3-inch circles. Bake 10 minutes, or until golden brown. Cool doughnuts on a rack over waxed paper.

4. Prepare icing: In a small mixing bowl stir together powdered sugar and vanilla. Stir in enough milk to make a smooth icing of glazing consistency. Spoon icing over doughnuts.









Gadgets that Work







I can't remember if I bought my Norpro Mini Donut Pan at Amazon or HomeGoods but as I remember it was around $9. I like the baked donuts because they are so much easier then frying or rolling out dough and cutting out individual donuts. All you do is pipe the batter into the donut pan, pop it into the oven and viola you've got donuts! If you don't have a pastry bag you can just carefully spoon the batter into the molds. It took me less then an hour to make the batter and bake the above recipe for the Pumpkin Donuts!

The Norpro Mini Donut Pan is non-stick and dishwasher safe, although I usually just wash it by hand.




All Rights Reserved 2008-9 © Big Black Dog

BBA -- Morphing Buns into Beignets

This week for our Bread Baker's Apprentice Challenge we were supposed to make Cinnamon Buns or Sticky Buns. But I made Cinnamon Buns just a few weeks ago and although I love Cinnamon Buns I really think they taste much better in cold weather when there's a foot of snow outside. Of course I could have made Danish but I just made Danish a month ago. Oh well, sometimes deciding on just what to make is a problem.

Then I remembered Beignets! I've wanted to try my hand at Custard-filled Beignets for the longest time and jumped at the chance to finally check off another item on my very long ToDo list!

Beignet (pronounced [bε.ɲε]; In France, beignet is an umbrella term for a large variety of pastries made from deep-fried dough with fruit or vegetable filling. They may contain other fillings, as well: potatoes, mushrooms, or even meat.







Although I followed Reinhard's Cinnamon Bun dough recipe, the shaping technique for Beignets was a bit different. After the first dough rise is complete, let the air out gently and divide the dough into small evenly sized balls. I weighed out small dough balls, 30 grams each, which was a little smaller then a ping pong ball. The Beignets puff up quite a bit, about double the size of the dough ball, during the frying process so if you want smaller Beignets adjust accordingly. Spray a piece of parchment paper with Pam. Place each dough ball on a parchment, cover and let rest in a warm place for about half an hour.

While the dough balls are resting, heat a pan of peanut oil over a medium heat about 375 degrees. When the oil is hot, carefully drop raw Beignet into hot oil. Fry one side and then flip over to fry the other side until Beignet is golden brown on all sides.



When they are cool enough to handle, pipe in the custard. I used a pastry bag fitted with a filling tip to pipe the custard into the Beignet. Fill the pastry bag with custard. Poke a hole in the side of the Beignet with the tip and pipe in the custard.







Custard Filling
Recipe adapted from my Mom

2 c. milk or cream
4 TBL flour
1/2 c. sugar
1 egg, beaten
1 tsp vanilla

Mix flour, sugar and beaten egg until well blended. Heat milk to a simmer. When the milk is hot, slowly pour the milk into the egg/flour/sugar mixture stirring constantly until smooth.

Pour the mixture back into the pot and cook over low heat until thickened. Remove from the heat and add the vanilla. Custard should be thick like pudding. If not thick enough put back on stove and while stirring add 1 tsp flour and heat though.








Google Books has the entire book, "The Bread Baker's Apprentice: Mastering the Art of Extraordinary Bread", by Peter Reinhart, scanned and you can find the recipe on Page 143 by clicking here.








All Rights Reserved 2008-9 © Big Black Dog

Remembering Spudnuts

When I was young we moved to Cuyahoga Falls, a small town outside Akron, Ohio. It was my first time living outside Michigan and a very difficult relocation for me. We moved in June as soon as the school year ended and our new home was in a brand spanky new development of 300 homes with only 50 homes occupied and no one was my age. So basically I went all summer with few friends but kept busy with reading, exploring our new town, planting a vegetable garden and regretfully playing with my little brother who was addicted to matchbook cars!

That summer Cuyahoga Falls was celebrating it's Sesqui-Centennial and there were many activities and everyone dressed in pioneer garb of long skirts, straw hats and aprons. Also every boy in my neighborhood was building a soap box car for the upcoming Soap Box Derby, a yearly event in Akron. In Michigan we built cars with engines that ran on gas and most boys built a go-carts again with a motor that ran on gas. Making a cart with no motor made no sense to me and I did not understand why they just did not race with bikes?

Cuyahoga Falls' business district was center for many Centennial activities that summer. And since downtown was just a short walk from our home I never missed a parade or street fair and I spent hours wandering through all the small shops. There were two stores I particularly remember. A Planter's Peanut Shoppe with a huge Mr. Peanut sign out front. They sold every thing peanut you could think of and even roasted nuts several times a day. The smell of the roasted peanuts was over powering and it never tempted me to venture inside more then once.



A few doors down was a Spudnut Shop which fascinated me. Spudnut, what the heck was a spudnut? Looking through the window I could see a huge vat with spudnuts frying and the vat tender would just touch the spudnut and it would magically flip over to fry the other side. In Michigan we called these donuts. The spudnits sure looked like donuts and I was dying to taste one.

The Spudnut Shop was always packed with men all sitting at a long counter and being alone and young I never dared enter. Once I was with my older sister and she took me inside and I finally got to taste a Spudnut. The Spudnut was good and I was not disappointed that it tasted just like a Michigan donut to me!

Well my tastes have changed and I'm not sure I could eat a Michigan donut again. But OMG...the Spudnuts are fabulous!





Spudnuts
Recipe developed by Big-Black-Dog

1 1/3 cups warm milk, not hot just barely warm
1 packet active dry yeast
2 tablespoons butter, melted but room temp.
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs, room temp and lightly whipped
4 c. flour (plus more if dough is too sticky)
1 c. potato flour
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1 tsp salt

Topping:
1/2 c. butter, melted
1 c. sugar
2 tsp cinnamon

Makes 1 1/2 - 2 dozen medium

1. Place 1 c. warm milk in the bowl and stir in the yeast with a fork.
2. Add sugar into the remaining warm milk and add it to the yeast mixture.
3. Stir in the eggs, cinnamon, and salt
4. Add the flours gradually, mixing throughly with each addition. If the dough is too sticky to handle add 1/2-1 c. more flour. You want the dough to pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl and eventually become supple and smooth. Turn it out onto a floured counter-top, knead a few times (the dough should be barely sticky), and shape into a ball.
5. Butter a large bowl and transfer the dough to the bowl. Brush the top of the dough with the remaining butter, cover, put in a warm place. I let it rise over night.
6. Punch down the dough and roll it out 1/2-inch thick on your floured countertop.
7. Cut out the donuts but not the center hole. Transfer cut outs to parchment lined cookie sheet. When the sheet is full of cutouts then cut out the donut hole. If you don't wait to cut out the middle your donut is more difficult to transfer and will be deformed. You can use a cookie cutter or a glass to cut out the donut shape.
8. Cover with a clean cloth and let rise for another 45 minutes.
9. Bake in a 375 degree oven until the just golden, 8 to 10 minutes.
10. When the donuts are golden brown, remove to a wire rack and cool.
11. Brush with melted butter and dip tops in cinnamon/sugar mix. Return to wire rack for 15 minutes. Enjoy!







All Rights Reserved 2008-9 © Big Black Dog

Donuts or Doughnuts?

We are still in construction/remodeling mode and have many boxes stored in our barn that need to be unpacked. Lord, I am already squeeshed for space in my new kitchen and I'm not sure where I'm going to put it all!! Sunday Joe had brought in some boxes and I was putting things away when I ran into a forgotten Mini Donut Pan that I had acquired a month or so ago!

I found a wonderful donut recipe that had rave reviews at Vegan Yum Yum and I decided to give it a try. And OH MY are they good!!! The baked donuts are very light with a nice crispy crust. Honestly, I don't think you need any topping as it would disguise the delicate flavor of the donut.

Sorry we ate most of the mini donuts before I could take a plated picture...LOL!! Yep...they were that good!

Mini Baked Donuts
Recipe adapted from Vegan Yum Yum

Donuts:

Dry Ingredients:
1 Cup All Purpose Flour
1/2 Cup Sugar
1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
1/4 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp Cinnamon

Wet Ingredients:
1/2 Cup milk
1/2 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
1/2 tsp Pure Vanilla Extract
1 Egg
4 Tbs butter

Glaze with Sprinkles

1/2 Cup Powdered Sugar
1 Tbs milk
Bowl full of confections

Preheat oven to 350º (325 for convection)

In a large bowl, combine dry ingredients with a whisk to mix thoroughly. Melt butter in microwave and combine with other wet ingredients.

Add wet to dry and mix until just combined. It should form a runny batter.

Using a tablespoon measure, scoop out batter into your ungreased nonstick mini-donut pan.

As you can see, the batter sits just below the rim. If you over fill, your donuts will come out looking like it has a little muffin top.

Bake for 12 minutes. They should not be browned on top, but a tester will come out clean. Invert hot pan over a cutting board or cooling rack to release donuts. Allow to cool completely before decorating.

Make about 15 Mini Donuts


Glaze

Whisk milk and powdered sugar together. Dip the “bottom” half of the donut into the glaze. I use tongs and gently grip the sides of the donut and then dip. Then dip glaze-side down into sprinkles. Transfer to a wire rack that has been set on top of some parchment paper. The excess glaze will drip through the rack onto the paper for easy cleaning later.

Ganache
Recipe Adapted from My Mom

8 ounces semi sweet chocolate, finely chopped
3/4 cup heavy cream

Put the chocolate in a medium heatproof bowl. In a small saucepan, bring cream to a boil. Pour cream over chocolate and shake the bowl gently so cream settles around the chocolate. Set mixture aside until the chocolate is soft, about 5 minutes. Whisk gently until smooth, taking care not to incorporate too many air bubbles.

Dip the tops of the cooled donuts into the ganache. Set them upright and let stand 1 or 2 minutes, until frosting is slightly set, then decorate with candies, or chopped nuts or confections, if desired. Let cakes stand on rack until ganache is completely set.

All Rights Reserved 2008 © Big Black Dog