You guys (and gals)! I made donuts! Cute, little, glazed baked donuts! This was my first time making baked donuts and I am so happy with how they came out. When I go to a donut shop I prefer the fried old fashioned donuts over the cake ones, but if I’m making them myself I would rather not fry them. I was skeptical of baked donuts, but they are so delicious I can’t believe I waited so long to try them. These are light, spongey and a perfect breakfast, or anytime, treat.

The inspiration for these donuts came from two places. The first is that I have been obsessing over strawberry rhubarb ever since I made the Strawberry Rhubarb Crumble Muffins so I’ve been trying to come up with another recipe to put them in before rhubarb’s short season is over. The second source of inspiration was beets! Love Beets to be exact. I won a giveaway on Instagram a few weeks ago and one of the brands sponsoring the giveaway was Love Beets. Matt and I were super excited since we know the brand and have purchased their roasted beets quite a few times. When I found out I won and would be getting some beet powder sent my way, I started brainstorming how I could use it. I had never tried using beets in a sweet recipe before so I knew that’s what I wanted to try. After giving it a lot of thought, I decided on beet donuts and ended up on the version you see in these photos.

I love using the beet powder for this recipe because it gives the donuts a beautiful pink color and all of the added superfood benefits of beets without the actual taste of beets. No, this is not sponsored as I won the giveaway randomly (one of those like this page and that page then tag a friend in the comments), but I love Love Beets and I’m excited to share their products with you if you aren’t already familiar with them!

The donuts are moist vanilla cinnamon donuts, but the sweet and tart brown butter strawberry rhubarb glaze makes them. The glaze is fruity, sweet and has the right amount of punch to it from the rhubarb. It also has a deep richness from the browned butter, just like in my Perfect Chocolate Chip Cookies. Plus, how beautiful does that rich pink color look?

If you don’t have a donut pan, I highly recommend these silicone pans. I did a bunch of research on the regular metal nonstick pans versus the silicone and while people had good things to say about both, I ultimately went with the silicone for ease of storing and ease of removing the donuts from the pan. The cute colors of the silicone pans also didn’t hurt. Have you ever tried baking donuts?

Beet Donuts with a Strawberry Rhubarb Glaze

 

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Yield: 6 donuts

Ingredients

for the donuts

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• ⅓ cup granulated sugar
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon beet powder, optional
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ¼ teaspoon ground cinnamon
• ⅓ cup plus 1 tablespoon milk
• 2 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1 large egg

for the glaze

• 1½ tablespoons butter
• ½ cup quartered fresh strawberries
• ¼ cup diced rhubarb
• 2 tablespoons milk
• ½ cup powdered sugar

Directions

for the donuts

1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lightly spray a donut pan with nonstick cooking spray and set aside.
2. Sift together the flour, sugar, baking powder, beet powder, salt and cinnamon in a large bowl.
3. In a small bowl, whisk together the milk, melted butter, vanilla extract and egg. Add to the flour mixture and stir until just combined.
4. Using a pastry bag or a plastic sandwich bag with a corner snipped off, pipe the batter into the donut pan cavities. Fill each cavity about ¾ full and be sure to wipe any off that gets dripped onto the center stems. Bake for 12-14 minutes. The tops should be set. When they’re cool enough to handle, remove them from the donut pan and let them cool completely on a wire cooling rack.

for the glaze

1. Melt the butter in a medium saucepan over medium heat. Continue to cook and swirl your pan to lightly brown the butter. Once the butter has started to foam and is a light golden color, add the chopped strawberries and rhubarb. Cook until soft, about 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.
2. Puree the fruit mixture with the milk in a food processor or blender. Stir in the vanilla extract then let sit until the mixture has cooled.
3. Once cooled, whisk in the powdered sugar until smooth. Dip the donuts in the glaze then let them sit on the cooling rack or plate for a couple minutes.

Notes

The glaze won't completely set because it is more of a syrup. If you want the glaze to set, you can melt 2 tablespoons of white chocolate chips into the pureed fruit mixture before letting cool. I made it both ways and thought it tasted good without the white chocolate so I didn't feel the need to add them just to make the glaze set more.

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Lauren Dessert, Recipes 0 Comments

My Aunt Elaine’s birthday is tomorrow and I wanted to post a special recipe to celebrate. When I was younger I would visit my Dad’s older sister during the summer. Aunt Elaine was a teacher making summer the perfect time to get some girl time in. Although I certainly loved visiting or having her visit during the school year as well so I could help grade papers!

I have so many food memories with my Aunt Elaine. First of all, she was the person who brought me to my first ever Chik-Fil-A! Thank you for that, Aunt Elaine! It was years before I could have Chik-Fil-A anywhere other than visiting my aunt in Maryland. She also bought me my first ever Dippin’ Dots when we were at a Science Museum. And yes, Dippin’ Dots still exists, and yes, I’m still obsessed with them.

I also have so many dishes she makes that I associate with visits to her house or family beach weeks, including her breakfast casserole, coffee cake, potatoes gratin and her famous Heath Bar ice cream cake. However, the one dish that I will always, always think about when I think about my Aunt Elaine is this Dirt Cake.

The first time my aunt made it for me she served it in a big flowerpot complete with a mini spade and fake flowers in the center. I thought it was the coolest dessert I had ever seen and I still get a kick out of it being served like that. I don’t have all those fun tools so I layered mine in a trifle bowl instead, but go all out if you want the full Dirt Cake experience.

I’m sure most, if not all, of you have had something similar to this. It is vanilla pudding that has been made even better by being mixed in with a cheesecake-like mixture and whipped cream. The creamy pudding layer is layered with Oreo cookie crumbs and gummy worms to live up to its Dirt name. When you scoop some of it into a bowl and mix the Oreo cookie crumbs into the vanilla cream layer you will definitely find yourself going back for seconds!

Aunt Elaine's Dirt Cake

 

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Yield: 10-12 servings

Ingredients

• 1 family pack size of Oreos (1 pound 3.1 ounces)
• ½ cup butter, room temperature
• 8 ounces cream cheese, room temperature
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 2 3.4-ounce small packs of instant vanilla pudding
• 3½ cups milk
• 12 ounces Cool Whip, thawed
• Gummy worms

Directions

1. Process the cookies in a food processor until they are fine crumbs. Alternatively you could smash them in a freezer bag with the meat mallet or rolling pin, but they won’t be as fine.
2. In the bowl of a stand mixer or in a large bowl with a hand mixer beat the butter, cream cheese and powdered sugar until fluffy and smooth, scraping down the sides as needed. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl, whisk together the pudding mixes and milk. Continue to whisk for several minutes until the mixture has thickened. Add the pudding mixture to the cream cheese mixture and stir to combine. Fold in the Cool Whip.
4. Make a layer of cookie crumbs in the bottom of your trifle bowl or flower pot. Make a layer of the pudding mixture on top. Continue alternating the layers, making sure you end on a cookie crumb layer. If you want gummy worms throughout your dirt cake make sure you are adding them as you go. If you just want the gummy worms on top, I added mine on the last pudding layer and then sprinkled the last “dirt” cookie layer around them to make it look like they were coming out of the dirt. Cover and refrigerate if not serving right away. Decorate with fake flowers and mini “garden spade” as desired.

Notes

I used reduced fat cream cheese, fat free milk and reduced fat Cool Whip. You can use whatever you have on hand or prefer.

Over the years I have seen many versions of my aunt’s cake online. Some people say you can leave out the butter without a big taste difference. I haven’t tried that so I can’t personally suggest it, but if you try it without the butter let me know how it turns out.

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Lauren Dessert, Recipes 0 Comments