Everybody loves Donuts!

Let me first start by saying, I had one extremely happy child today!  It's been over a year since he's eaten a donut, and the look on his face was priceless as he bit into this one.

I had decided to invest in a Donut pan, and it was money well spent.  I'll be using this often!

Baked Vanilla Donuts
~Egg, Dairy, Soy and nut free~

Ingredients

Vanilla Donuts
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup white sugar
1/4 cup packed  brown sugar
2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
3/4 cup buttermilk (I used plain Rice milk, and added 3/4 tbsp of vinegar to make "buttermilk")
2 eggs (I mix 2 tbsp water and 1/2 tsp baking powder for each egg called for)
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoon melted butter (I used canola oil with no problems)

Glaze
1 cup confectioners' sugar
2 tablespoons milk (again, I used Rice milk)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract

*******

I used my Kitchen Aid Mixer, with the flat beater attachment, and mixed until the batter was smooth.



Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Lightly grease your donut pan.  I have an oil sprayer that I used.
In a large bowl mix together the flour, sugars, baking powder and salt. Stir in milk, eggs, vanilla and butter. Stir until well blended.
Fill each doughnut cup approximately 3/4 full.
Bake 8 to 10 minutes or until donuts spring back when touched. Allow to cool slightly before removing from pan.  Mine took 10 minutes and turned out perfect!

Flip donuts onto a wire rack and allow to cool completely.  Place the wire rack on top of a piece of wax or parchment paper, and make your glaze.
I dipped the top of my cooled donuts into the glaze, and placed them back on the wire rack to dry.  The wax or parchment paper underneath catches the drips and makes cleanup quick and easy!

Tomorrow, we'll make chocolate donuts!

**Be creative with your icing!  Chocolate, Vanilla with sprinkles (check ingredients), Maple.........**

Recipe makes 6-8 decent sized donuts

Bread machine Cinnamon Raisin Bread

This turned out fantastic!!!  It didn't last long, that's for sure!

INGREDIENTS, add in order please.

1 cup warm water
3 Tbsp sugar
1 & 1/2 Tsp yeast

Allow this to sit in the bread machine pan for 10 minutes, yeast will become bubbly.  This is good!

Then add the following:
2 Tbsp butter or margarine (I used Olive Oil and it turned out great)
3 cups flour
1 & 1/2 tsp salt

Select basic setting and choose your crust color.  I chose light.

While this is mixing, toss 3/4 cup raisins in a bit of flour, this will keep them from clumping up in the bread machine.  I tossed 1 & 1/2 tsp ground cinnamon in with the raisins as well.

At the ADD NUTS/RAISIN'S beep (approx 20ish minutes into the kneading process), add your raisin/flour/cinnamon. 

Sit back and wait for it to bake! 

Let it cool on a wire rack, and let it cool before slicing or it will just crumble.

Easy and delicious!

Cranberry-Orange Muffins

INGREDIENTS

2 cups flour
3/4 cups sugar
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup cranberries (I used Craisins, it's all I had at the time)
1 egg  or egg replacer (I use 1/2 tsp baking powder & 2 tbsp water)
3/4 cup orange juice
1/4 cup vegetable oil (any oil should work, I used grapeseed oil)
1 tsp grated orange rind


DIRECTIONS
Mix dry ingredients, then toss in cranberries.  Set bowl aside.
In other bowl, mix together remaining ingredients.  Pour wet ingredients into dry, stirring just enough to moisten.  Batter will be quite thick. 
Pour into greased muffin tins, about 3/4 full. 
Sprinkle a little bit of white sugar on the top of each muffin if desired.

Bake in a 400F oven for 15-20 minutes, or until tops are golden brown and a toothpick comes out clean.

Apple Pull Apart Bread (Bread machine dough recipe)

This stuff is AMAZING!  (icing not shown on the bread)

What I did is made a basic sweet dough in the bread machine.

BASIC SWEET DOUGH

1 cup water
2 eggs (or egg replacer)
1/4 cup butter or margarine (we use Earth Balance Soy Free)
2 tsp salt
4 cups all purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
3 tbsp skim milk powder (we omit this entirely and it turns out fine)
2 tsp quick rise yeast (we use bread machine yeast)


FILLING INGREDIENTS
2 apples, peeled, cored and chopped finely
1 tsp cinnamon
1 tbsp sugar

Combine filling ingredients, and set aside

Add ingredients in order listed, and select the DOUGH option.  Once the dough is finished, remove from the bread machine.  On a lightly floured surface, punch down the dough and cut into 2 equal pieces.  Cut each of those pieces into 8-10 pieces.  Roll out each small piece into a circle.  Put half a tsp of filling (see the rest of the instructions for ingredients for it) and pinch the edges together, kind of like a dumpling. 

Dip the balls into melted butter or margerine (I melted 2 tbsp of earth balance) and put 8 or so balls into a tube or bundt pan.  Spoon some of the apple mixture over the layer of balls, then repeat until you're out of dough.  Spoon any remaining apple mix over the top, let it fall in between the dough balls etc. 
Bake at 350F for 35-40 minutes or until golden brown. 

ICING
1 cup icing sugar
3 to 4.5 tsp hot water
1/2 tsp vanilla

Combine icing ingredients.  Remove bread from pan to wire rack and drizzle icing over bread. 
Enjoy!

Easy and delicious chocolate dipped Pretzels!

OK so, I took the easy route and used Rolled Gold pretzel twists (dairy, egg, soy and nut free). 
This was so simple and tastes delicious! 






I had just under half a bag of Enjoy Life Chocolate Chips (free of most allergens)
I put them in a sauce pan combined with
1 tsp shortening (I use Tenderflake, but check your ingredients as not all brands are soy free)
over low/medium heat, stir until melted and liquidy.

Toss in your pretzels, one at a time, and lift out with a fork once entire pretzel is coated in chocolate.
Shake gently to remove any excess chocolate (does excess chocolate really exist?  there is never enough chocolate in my opinion!)
Lie flat on a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.  Cool in the fridge until chocolate is set.

Simple! 

Soft Molasses Cookies

What a treat!  These turned out so wonderful! 
Be sure to make a lot of them, they will go fast.  This, I can assure you!

3/4 cup shortening (be sure to check ingredients if allergies are involved)
1 cup packed brown sugar
1 egg
1/2 cup molasses (I used cooking molasses)

2 & 1/2 cups flour
1/2 tsp salt (I may decrease to 1/4 tsp, I found them a tad on the salty side, but either way will work)
2 tsp baking soda
1 tsp ground cinnamon
1 tsp ground ginger
1 tsp allspice
1 tsp nutmeg


Cream together shortening and sugar.  Add egg (or egg replacer) and molasses, stir until creamy.
In separate bowl, combine all dry ingredients.  Fold into molasses mixture and stir until combined.  Cover, and refrigerate for 1-2 hours until well chilled. 
Once chilled, roll into smallish balls, roll in white sugar, and place on a greased (I use parchment paper) cookie sheet. 
Bake at 350F for 9-10 minutes.

**IMPORTANT STEP, DO NOT SKIP**
Leave the cookies on the cookie sheet for 1 minute.  After that minute, remove onto rack to cool. 


Now, I will admit that I forgot to add one key ingredient.  The egg (or in our case, the egg replacer) and they still turned out wonderful!  I was a little concerned, but lets just say I'm having a hard time keeping the cookies from being devoured! 

The BEST Lemon Loaf!

I decided to tweak and try this recipe and I must say, the entire loaf almost disappeared in an hour!  This was fantastic! 
Please do not make the mistake I made by using a stone loaf pan, when you try to remove very hot items from stone, they tend to break.  Next time I make this, I will use a lightly greased glass loaf pan.



1/2 butter, 1/2 cup margarine or 1/2 cup shortening (I used shortening, I was almost out of our *safe* margarine)
1 cup sugar
2 eggs or replacements (I used 1/2 tsp baking powder and 2 tbsp water for each egg called for)
1/2 cup milk (I used original rice milk)
1 & 1/2 cups flour
1 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
rind from one lemon




GLAZE
juice from one lemon
1/4 cup sugar
*while bread is baking, I make my glaze, but not too early as it needs to be liquidy to put onto bread.  Over medium heat, dissolve sugar and lemon juice, in a saucepan*

Cream butter and sugar in large bowl.
Add eggs or replacement, mixing until creamy.  NOTE: if using shortening, texture will not seem smooth, this is okay.
Blend in milk.

In another bowl, mix flour, baking powder, salt and lemon rind.
Pour into the batter, stirring until moist.
Pour into greased loaf pan.
Bake at 350F for 55-60 minutes.
Let cool for 5 minutes
Remove to rack while loaf is still hot, and use a toothpick to poke holes all over the top of the bread.  Spoon glaze over the top (be sure to have a plate underneath, this can and will get messy)
Allow to cool before slicing into it.

ENJOY!