Sweet Stuffs

Throughout my pregnancy, I've not had "cravings" in the typical sense. Yeah, I'll randomly want something, usually Arby's, but that happened to me before I got knocked up. Usually around that time of the months...and it was usually chocolate.


I am a sugar addict. I'm completely and utterly addicted to sugary items. Most of the things I've "craved" have sugar. Are are made mostly out of sugar. So, I've actually done quite a bit of baking. Recently, I've wanted doughnuts.

I always get random cravings for doughnuts. Usually when there's no doughnut place in sight. (Except that one time when I was in Boston when I was 13 and I desperately wanted a doughnut and no one would let me have one.) Anyways, I usually want a doughnut after three pm and all the doughnut shops in town (there are several) are closed. The first time I craved doughnuts, I went to local food store and got some of their Krispie Cream doughnuts. They fulfilled my craving and I was happy.

However, I thought: there must be a healthier way to eat a doughnut, right?

Then I remembered: Baked doughnuts.

I'd need a doughnut pan. I didn't have one, hence why I'd never tried it before. So, I logged onto Amazon, used the last of my credit card reward points and happily bought two doughnut pans and a doughnut cutter for when I decided I'd like to tackle yeast doughnuts myself.

I also got a cookbook all about doughnuts: Doughnuts: Simple and Delicious Recipes to Make at Home. 

So, I was amped up to make doughnuts.

Then I read the cookbook.

It called for things I'd a) never find in the tiny town I live in (I can't even find white whole wheat flour, people) and b) whole milk (that I can find easily now that I know it's not called whole milk, but vitamin D milk).

Also, the recipes all made way too many doughnuts for me to eat alone, so I took to my old fall back: Pinterest.

That's where I found the recipe I decided to use. Reasons I decided to use it: a) it didn't call for any special flour; b) it didn't call for any special type of sugar; c) it claimed to make only 10 doughnuts; and d) it didn't call for whole milk except in the glaze, which I figured I could fudge with skim.

So, I made these doughnuts.

They were good.

They were actually really easy to make.

Pilot Boy came home and announced, "Wow, these are good!"

I did learn a few things the first time I made them.

1. Use actual buttermilk. I've never actually bought buttermilk before, but since I was going to the store to get real butter for these babies (the fake stuff doesn't brown as nice, tragically) I decided I'd get some buttermilk. And man, they taste better with the real thing as opposed to when you milk the milk you have with vinegar. (or maybe I'm just mental, I'm not sure)

2. Don't make the glaze in a pie plate. Also, cut the glaze recipe in half.

The second time I made doughnuts, I wanted to make non-chocolate cake ones. I went with the other recipe on posted on Joy the Baker: Brown Butter Doughnuts.

They were not as good as the chocolate and I doubt I'll make them again. I'm not sure what went wrong, as once more I followed the directions and didn't do my own thing, but they were chewy and tasted horrid. I also made a batch of chocolate ones and froze the dough I didn't use (will I ever use it? I don't know. More than likely not, but I was tried and didn't feel like making more doughnuts.) The Brown Butter Doughnuts recipes claims to make six, but I got almost eight, thus why I began the chocolate ones when I wasn't going to, but then I did.

Anyways, I can vouch the chocolate baked doughnuts are awesome.

The other thing I've recently been making often is cookie dough balls. Frozen cookie dough balls. I like these because they are sugar, chocolate, and cold. And they are small so you don't feel like you're eating a whole bunch when you chow down on four or five of the tiny balls. I cut the recipe in half, as I don't have room in my freezer for a full batch. They are really good on a hot day.