Monday Muffins: Donuts

Sep 12, 2011 By Love & Flour in Muffins 4 Comments Tags: apple, cinnamon, ganache, maple syrup, vanilla

My love for donuts (or doughnuts?) runs deep, though like many things, I’m not quite sure why.

I’ve read Glazed America, titled as a social history of the doughnut in America, but unfortunately all I can really remember are a lot of references to Homer Simpson and his love for donuts. More recently, I’ve consumed my share of Krispy Kreme’s Cheerwine-cream-filled donuts.

When my sister was in elementary school and I was in middle school, my dad would drive us from our home in the country to the town where our grandparents lived and where we went to school. Since the elementary school day began an hour or so later than the middle school day, my sister would catch the bus from Grandma and Grandpa’s house, and Dad would drop me off at school.

The drives in on Thursdays were the best because Thursdays were Donut Day. We would stop at Rod’s Donut Shop, and each of us would order the same things every week. A black coffee and danish for Dad, a jelly-filled donut for my sister, and a filled stick (long john) for me.

After I prepared my entry for Willow Bird Baking Cupcake Challenge last week, I spent some time reading the blog and came across a recipe for donut muffins. And on the “to bake” list they went.

The toppings are what make these donuts. By themselves, the little donut muffins are a bit plain, but topped and filled they are rather delicious. I made three varieties of donut muffins: apple-cinnamon with cinnamon-sugar topping, vanilla-cream filled with chocolate-ganache, and maple with brown sugar icing.

Apple-Cinnamon Donut Muffins with Cinnamon-Sugar Topping

For apple-cinnamon muffins, add 3/4 teaspoon cinnamon and 3/4 cup finely chopped apple to the batter. When cool, dip the top of a muffin in melted butter and then roll in a mixture of one part cinnamon to three parts sugar. These donut muffins taste even better after they sit for a day!

Vanilla-Cream Filled and Chocolate-Ganache Topped

For vanilla-cream-filled, chocolate-ganache-topped muffins, use a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment to whip 1 cup whipping cream with 1 teaspoon vanilla and 2 tablespoons of sugar until a medium-consistency cream forms. Place the whipped cream in a pastry bag fitted with tip 230 and gently puncture the bottom of the muffin to fill. Be sure to squeeze with a gentle pressure to avoid overfilling and bursting the muffin!

To make the chocolate ganache, melt 1/2 cup of chocolate chips with 2 tablespoons of heavy cream over low heat. Stir constantly until smooth, then dip the top of a muffin in the ganache. Top with sprinkles if desired.

Maple Donut Muffins with Brown Sugar Icing

For maple muffins, add 1 teaspoon maple syrup extract to the batter. When cool, dip the top of a muffin in a brown sugar icing made by melting butter with heavy cream and brown sugar, then adding in confectioner’s sugar. Enjoy!

Donut Muffins

Author: adapted from Willow Bird Baking and Buns In My Oven

Serves: 27

Ingredients

1½ cups all-purpose flour
2 teaspoons baking power
¼ teaspoon salt
¾ cup granulated sugar
1 egg
¼ cup vegetable oil
¾ cup milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

Instructions

Whisk the flour, baking powder and salt together in a medium bowl and set aside.
Beat the sugar and the egg together at medium speed until light and fluffy, about 2-3 minutes.
Slowly alternate adding the vegetable oil, milk, and vanilla with the flour mixture and mix until combined.
Add the desired flavorings or mix-ins as seen in the notes below.
Fill the wells of a mini-muffin pan approximately ¾ full.
Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes.
When cool, top or ice according to the notes below.

Notes

For apple-cinnamon muffins, add ¾ teaspoon cinnamon and ¾ cup finely chopped apple to the batter. When cool, dip the top of a muffin in 3 tablespoons of melted butter and then roll in a mixture of one part cinnamon to three parts sugar. For maple muffins, add 1 teaspoon maple syrup extract to the batter. When cool, dip the top of a muffin in brown sugar icing. To make the icing, melt ¼ cup of butter with 2 tablespoons of heavy cream over low heat. Slowly whisk in ½ cup of brown sugar and remove from heat once fully melted. Vigorously whisk in 1 cup of confectioner’s sugar. Use immediately! For vanilla filled-chocolate ganache muffins, use a mixer fitted with the whisk attachment to whip 1 cup whipping cream with 1 teaspoon vanilla and 2 tablespoons of sugar until a medium-consistency cream forms. Place the whipped cream in a pastry bag fitted with tip 230 and gently puncture the bottom of the muffin to fill. To make the ganache, melt ½ cup of chocolate chips with 2 tablespoons of heavy cream over low heat. Stir constantly until smooth, then dip the top of a muffin in the ganache. Top with sprinkles if desired.

Gimme S’more Bread Pudding

Sep 10, 2011 By Love & Flour in Bread Puddings 4 Comments Tags: graham crackers, s'mores

Summer may be the time for camp fires, but fall is the time for bonfires. And where there are bonfires, there must be s’mores.

I confess, I do not particularly care for s’mores. I appreciate marshmallows, chocolate and graham crackers in their own rights, but the three of them together are just too much for my tastes.

Because I do not care for regular s’mores, and because I did not build a bonfire this afternoon, I did the next best thing and made s’mores bread pudding. I clipped this recipe from a Better Homes and Gardens magazine over a year ago, but I never got around to enjoying it before today.

I used Ciabatta bread, but the original recipe called for hotdog buns. If the rain from tropical storm Lee washed out your Labor Day cookout, as it did for many in my neck of the woods, you now know what to do with all those leftover hotdog buns.

The dish itself was just as I had hoped, with perfect amounts of marshmallow, chocolate and graham cracker working together to provide the right amount of flavor. Somewhat surprisingly, the taste of cinnamon really came through despite only the small 1/4 teaspoon that was added.

When I set out to write this post, I knew I wanted to leave you with some links to other great s’mores recipe ideas like s’mores cheesecake. As I searched for s’mores recipes, I found this to be a recently popular combination…it showed up as the most recent posts in the form of s’mores pie and s’mores bites on two blogs I read. Aren’t coincidences the nicest things?

S’mores Bread Pudding

Author: adapted from Dawn Wilber’s recipe as seen in Better Homes and Gardens, January 2010

Ingredients

6 heaping cups of day old bread cut into one-inch chunks
3 eggs
1 – 14 ounce can sweetened condensed milk
½ cup milk
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
¼ teaspoon cinnamon
1 cup mini-marshmallows, divided into 1 – ½ cup and 2 – ¼ cup portions
¾ cup chocolate chips, divided into 1- ½ cup and 1 – ¼ cup portions
6 graham cracker squares (3 full crackers), broken into small pieces
2 tablespoons heavy cream

Instructions

Place chunks of bread on a baking sheet and toast at 325 degrees for approximately five minutes until crisp.
Beat eggs in a medium bowl.
Add the condensed milk, milk, vanilla, and cinnamon to the eggs and stir until combined.
Place the toasted bread chunks into a greased 8 x 8 baking pan.
Sprinkle ½ cup of the marshmallows and ½ cup of the chocolate chips over the bread.
Pour the egg and milk mixture over the bread, marshmallows and chocolate chips. Allow to sit for five minutes.
Sprinkle the top of the bread pudding with the graham crackers pieces.
Bake at 325 degrees for 30 minutes.
Sprinkle the top of the bread pudding with ¼ cup of the marshmallows and bake an additional five minutes.
While the bread pudding bakes, melt the remaining ¼ cup of marshmallows, remaining ¼ cup of chocolate chips and heavy cream in a saucepan over low heat.
Remove the fully baked bread pudding from the oven and drizzle the melted topping over the bread pudding.

Notes

I used Ciabatta bread for this recipe.

Banana and Peanut Butter and Marshmallow…Oh my!

Sep 8, 2011 By Love & Flour in Cupcakes 1 Comment Tags: banana, chocolate, marshmallow, peanut butter

Over the weekend, I worked on my creation for the Willow Bird Baking Cupcake Challenge. The requirements: a cake, a filling and a frosting.

I considered key lime, graham cracker and raspberry, but I settled on banana, peanut butter and marshmallow. The latter reminded me of the banana boats (a sliced banana topped with peanut butter and mayonnaise) my mom used to make as a before-dinner snack. Of course instead of mayonnaise, I used marshmallow.

Though a variety of recipes for banana cake can be found across the internet, I’m pretty much going it alone after three months of nearly non-stop baking. You may have noticed that most of my (cup)cake recipes contain a few base items: one cup of flour to 1/4 teaspoon baking soda and (unsalted) butter, sugar and vanilla. After that, it’s a matter of tweaking the flavors and the textures. I am by no means saying this is the best base recipe out there, but it is what works for me right now.

The banana cupcakes were just sweet enough, and the banana flavor really came through. The plain yogurt gave the cake a bit of a tangy taste, but I liked how it balanced the sweet of the peanut butter filling and marshmallow icing.

After baking the first batch, I decided to throw in some cocoa powder for the remaining cupcakes because chocolate really does make everything better. While I liked these cupcakes, the chocolate seemed to overpower the banana flavor. On the other hand, it really brought out the peanut butter and marshmallow flavors.

The filling is up for debate. My cupcakes did not contain a lot of filling because I used a filling tip to puncture and then pipe filling into my cupcakes. Other cupcake bakers prefer to use the cone method where a cone is cut from the cake, filling is placed in the resulting cavity, and then the top of the cone is placed back onto the cupcake.

It does strike me as somewhat odd that I prefer more cake than filling given that my donut of choice is a filled stick (long john), and I used to love that cinnamon-flavored gum with the syrupy filling (I don’t remember the brand name of that gum, but they were square pieces that looked almost like Hall’s cough drops). My point is, I like filling, but I guess I like cake better.

To create the frosting, feel free to use marshmallow fluff in place of melted marshmallows. I just happened to have marshmallows on hand so I thought it silly to buy fluff.

A good thing about this recipe is that is allows for variations. You can certainly fill the cupcakes with marshmallow and frost with peanut butter buttercream. However you decide to make your cupcakes, enjoy!

P.S. – Check out Willow Bird Baking for a look at other great cupcake creations. And, consider taking part in a Willow Bird Baking challenge sometime!

Banana Cupcake with Peanut Butter and Marshmallows Buttercream

Recipe type: Dessert

Serves: 20

Ingredients

2 cups all-purpose flour
½ teaspoon baking soda
½ teaspoon salt
½ cup butter
½ cup granulated sugar
½ cup brown sugar
2 eggs
1 cup mashed ripe bananas
¾ cup plain Greek yogurt
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Peanut Butter Filling
½ cup butter
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
2 tablespoons creamy peanut butter
1 tablespoon milk
1 teaspoon vanilla
Marshmallow Frosting
1 cup mini marshmallows
1 tablespoon milk
½ cup butter
3 cups confectioners’ sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions

Whisk together the flour, baking soda and salt in a medium bowl and set aside.
Cream the butter and the sugars together.
Add the eggs, one at a time, beating well after each addition.
Continue to mix on medium speed while adding the bananas, yogurt and vanilla extract.
Line a cupcake pan with paper liners and pour batter into liners until approximately ¾ full.
Bake at 350 degrees for approximately 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted into one of the cupcakes comes out clean.
While the cupcakes cool, make the peanut butter filling. Cream the butter and slowly add the confectioners’ sugar.
Add the peanut butter, milk and vanilla, and beat at high speed two to three minutes until the filling is light and smooth.
Fill a decorating bag fitted with tip 230 with the filling.
Gently press tip into the top of the cupcake and move downward to the bottom of the paper liner. Squeeze the bag while moving tip back toward the top of the cupcake to fill.
For the frosting, melt the marshmallows over low heat. When the marshmallows have puffed to about twice their size, add in the milk and stir until fully melted and smooth.
Cream the butter and slowly add the confectioners’ sugar.
Add the melted marshmallows and vanilla and beat at high speed two to three minutes until the filling is light and smooth.
Spoon the icing into a decorating bag fitted with a decorating tip 1M.
Gently pipe the icing onto each cupcake by starting at the outermost edge and forming a circle inwards towards the center.
If desired, garnish with a sprinkle of cocoa powder or sliced bananas.

Notes

To make chocolate-banana cupcakes, add ¼ cup cocoa powder to the cupcake powder.

« 83 84 85 86 87 88 89 90 »