Category Archives: dessert

Krispy Kreme bread pudding

baking, dessert 18 Comments

With bathing suit season upon us, you may be thinking it’s time to lighten things up a bit. Try some grilled fish, some raw veggies, some fresh fruit.

Or you may be thinking that life is short, and you really should eat a big ol’ mess of Krispy Kreme bread pudding.

It’s always good to start with this:

If things go horribly wrong and you never even get a chance to cook, you still have two dozen donuts. And not just donuts — Krispy Kreme donuts. A gift from heaven.

The Kiddo’s Aunt Burgle was in town, and we have a tradition: our weekends together always include shopping (probably shoes), Cracker Barrel, Krispy Kremes and wine. Our days after our weekends together are spent wondering why our jeans are suddenly tight. But I digress.

So this weekend we thought we’d branch out and try something new with our KK donuts. We bought two dozen, leaving one to eat plain, just in case the pudding wasn’t great.

Our fears were unwarranted.

I looked at this recipe at Recipezaar, and this recipe from Paula Deen. The first one looked a little more involved, and we had to keep an eye on our assorted children, so we were hoping for super easy. The second recipe was easier, but Aunt Burgle’s sprouts weren’t fans of fruit cocktail or raisins, and we didn’t really think it appropriate to dish up rum butter sauce for a bunch of kids (we had grand delusions of sharing at the time). So in the end we winged it and went with:

  • 1 dozen Krispy Kreme donuts, cut into chunks
  • 2 eggs, beaten
  • 7 oz (1/2 can) sweetened condensed milk
  • pinch of salt
  • 1/4 tsp cinnamon

To assemble:

  1. Preheat oven to 350
  2. Cut donuts into chunks and put in a large bowl
  3. Beat the eggs and add condensed milk, salt and cinnamon
  4. Pour egg mixture over donuts and let it sit about 30 minutes, stirring every so often
  5. Butter a small casserole dish and put donut mix in dish, uncovered
  6. Bake for 30 minutes or so until custard is mostly set

We wanted more donut than custard, and this was just that. Enough custard to hold the donuts together, but not so much that it overwhelmed the yummy KK flavor and texture.  This would be awesome served warm with vanilla ice cream!

We ate it warm that night. And then room temp later that night. And then cold for breakfast the next morning. Purely for research, of course, and I’m happy to report it was fabulous at all temperatures. I do hope you understand the sacrifices our hips we made for this research.

Guinness Cupcakes

baking, dessert, tools 7 Comments

You know this is going to be good, don’t you?

Adapted from Smitten Kitchen and LovesToEat.

You will need:

  • 1 cup Guinness beer
  • 1 cup (2 sticks) butter
  • 3/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder
  • 2 cups all purpose flour
  • 2 cups sugar
  • 1 1/2 teaspoons baking soda
  • 3/4 teaspoon salt
  • 2 large eggs
  • 2/3 cup sour cream

Now:

  1. Preheat oven to 350 F
  2. Line 24 cupcake cups with liners
  3. In a heavy saucepan over medium heat, melt 1 cup of butter and pour in 1 cup  Guinness; bring to a simmer then whisk in cocoa powder till smooth. Set pan off the burner
  4. Whisk flour, sugar, baking soda, and salt in large bowl to blend
  5. Using electric mixer, beat eggs and sour cream in another large bowl
  6. Add slightly-cooled stout-chocolate mixture to egg mixture a little bit at a time and beat just to combine
  7. Add flour mixture and beat on slow speed for about one minute
  8. Using rubber spatula, scrape down bowl and fold batter until completely combined
  9. Divide batter among cupcake liners, filling them 2/3 to 3/4 of the way
  10. Bake until toothpick inserted into center of cupcake comes out clean — this took me about 20 minutes, but check after 15 just to be sure
  11. Put cupcakes on a rack until completely cooled

Now is a good time to revisit my previously mentioned lesson: Know Your Bakeware. I cooked 12 of these in my silicone Kitchenaid muffin pan; it was a wedding present and has never failed me. I also cooked 12 of these in my heart shaped stand-alone silicone muffin cups from Wilton. Although these worked beautifully for the cherry limeade cupcakes, something went horribly wrong here. See?

Lovely, right? I honestly have no idea what happened here. I used a scoop, so they were all filled with the same amount of batter. Any ideas? The only thing I did differently this time was to put paper liners in the silicone cups. Anyway, the good news is that all but four of them were salvageable with a little cleanup and a good cover of icing.

Speaking of icing! I used Wilton’s buttercream icing.

You will need:

  • 1/2 cup solid vegetable shortening
  • 1/2 cup (1 stick) butter or margarine softened
  • 1 tsp. vanilla extract (I don’t use the Wilton-recommended clear, just the regular stuff)
  • 4 cups sifted* powdered sugar (approximately 1 lb.)
  • 2 tablespoons milk

*A note on sifting: I hate sifting. So I don’t do it. A few seconds whirring around in the food processor breaks up any clumps, aerates the sugar and doesn’t make me want to spork my eyeballs out the way a sifter does.

To mix it up:

  1. In large bowl, cream shortening and butter with electric mixer
  2. Add vanilla and mix again
  3. Gradually add sugar, about 1/4 cup at a time, beating well on medium speed — adding it gradually helps incorporate it really well and keep it from being at all grainy when you’re done
  4. Scrape sides and bottom of bowl often (unless you have a cool Beater Blade. Which I don’t. Humph.)
  5. When all sugar has been mixed in, icing will appear dry. Add milk and beat at medium speed until light and fluffy. Keep bowl covered with a damp cloth until ready to use.

Now ice away to your heart’s content! I used disposable icing bags from Wilton, and a fantastic giant star tip I ordered on Etsy from Bake It Pretty. And it is giant. Here it is next to a 1-cup measuring cup:

So, the finished product:

I set aside a few of these (including the four Fail Cupcakes) for us to enjoy at home, and the rest I took to The Yankee at work today in my awesome carrier from Costco:

And that’s it! Go bake, people! Oh, unless you have a brilliant theory as to what caused Cupcake Fail, in which case please leave me a comment and then go bake.

Artisan monkey bread

baking, breakfast, dessert 5 Comments

I know, I know. You’re thinking, “Artisan monkey bread??” And now you’re humming “One of These Things is Not Like the Other.”

Oh that’s just me?

Anyhoo…

I bought Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day. And it’s awesome. Great concept, especially for those of us who are prone to thinking, at 5:00 in the evening, “Ooh fresh bread with supper would be great!” Poor planning = no bread. Or it did, but not now. NOW I have bread dough in my fridge, ready at a moment’s notice. Ready to become chewy pizza dough, or a crusty loaf for supper or… monkey bread.

My gorgeous baby sister got married this weekend, so our very dear friends came to stay the weekend with us. I was scooting out in the morning before everyone was up, but I wanted to have something ready for everyone for breakfast anyway. So I did this:

I rolled little balls of my refrigerated artisan dough and plunked them into a cake pan. I – wait for it – do not own a Bundt pan. I know — how is that possible?! But I don’t. So silicone cake pan. I melted some butter and drizzled it over the dough, then covered it and stuck it back in the fridge overnight. Then I melted half a stick of butter in a measuring cup and stirred in a tsp. of vanilla and 1/2 cup of brown sugar; I covered that and put it in the fridge too:

I left intructions to let the pan sit out on the counter while the oven was preheating to 350, then bake for 15 minutes. At that point, nuke the topping until it’s pourable, then pour it over the bread and bake for 15 minutes more.

Now, want to know what happens when you do such things but forget to ask for a picture of the pretty finished product? You come home to this:

I love it! Reckon it was good, huh?

So, to recap:

  • Roll chunks of artisan bread dough, about donut hole size; I made around 40
  • Drizzle with a couple melted Tbsp. melted butter
  • Melt 4 Tbsp. butter and stir in 1/2 cup brown sugar and 1 tsp. vanilla for topping
  • When ready to bake, leave on counter to puff a bit while oven preheats to 350F
  • Bake for 15 minutes
  • Drizzle on topping
  • Bake for 15 minutes more
  • Don’t burn your fingers 😉

Cherry Limeade Cupcakes

baking, dessert 11 Comments

I may have actually squealed in delight when I saw how cute these turned out. Just maybe.

I found the recipe over at Annie’s Eats and knew I had to give it a shot. The love my sister and I have for cherry limeades at Sonic is somewhat legendary. She actually lived in LA (that’s Los Angeles — not Lower Alabama) for a few years (far! Too far!) and when she would come back to visit we would always go to Sonic and drink our weight in cherry limeades. And Sonic happy hour during the summer? Half price cherry limeade? Nearly. Every. Day. Point being, this recipe was a no-brainer choice for my baby sister’s birthday this year.

I stuck pretty closely to Annie’s recipe:

Cupcakes:

  • 3 cups cake flour (I actually used cake flour, which I never do)
  • 1/2 tsp. salt
  • 1 tsp. baking powder
  • 1/2 tsp. baking soda
  • 1 cup butter, at room temperature (I am a rebel and use salted all the time)
  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup plus 2 tbsp. limeade concentrate
  • 3 eggs
  • 3/4 cup milk (I used whole milk because it’s all we keep in the house)

To make cupcakes:

  1. Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F and line or grease cupcake pans
  2. In a large bowl whisk together the cake flour, salt, baking powder and baking soda
  3. In the bowl of a stand mixer with the paddle attached, cream the butter until fluffy and smooth
  4. Add the sugar and beat on medium-high speed until creamed
  5. Add in the limeade concentrate and mix to incorporate
  6. Add the eggs one at a time, scraping down the bowl between additions
  7. Add in the flour mixture gradually, alternating with the milk, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.  Mix ingredients just long enough that everything is incorporated — don’t want to overmix it

Fill your prepared cupcakes pans and bake for about 15-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.  Cool cupcakes in the pans for 5-10 minutes, then completely on a wire rack

Now the syrup!

Lime syrup:

  • 3/4 cup limeade concentrate
  • 1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar

After the cupcakes are completely cooled, whisk together the limeade concentrate and confectioners sugar in a small bowl to make the lime syrup.  Poke several holes in the top of each cupcake with toothpicks and gently spoon the syrup over the cupcakes, a tiny bit at a time, allowing it to soak in. I didn’t end up using all the syrup, but feel free to do so! Annie tells me it’s up to your tastes.

Next…

Icing:

  • 3 3/4 cups confectioners sugar, sifted
  • 1/2 cup butter, softened
  • 4 Tbsp maraschino cherry juice

To make the icing, combine the confectioners sugar, butter and maraschino cherry juice in the bowl of a stand mixer.  Mix on low speed until sugar is mixed in, then increase to medium speed and beat until smooth.  You can add more maraschino cherry juice as needed to thin out the icing enough to be workable, but I found that 4 Tbsp was just fine. Optional: add red food coloring if desired; I didn’t because the pink of the cherry juice alone was fabulous.

Garnish:

  • fresh lime slices
  • maraschino cherries

Ice your cooled cupcakes, and garnish with lime slices and maraschino cherries, if your little heart desires. I absolutely did desire — this put them over the top from great cupcakes to OMG THOSE ARE FABULOUS cupcakes. I love them!

Apple crisp

baking, dessert 1 Comment

I had the WORST craving for apple crisp this week. A craving, yes, but no recipe. And no patience to go looking for one. So here’s what I came up with:

I’m the only one in the house who likes an apple crisp (no sharing! Score!), so I cut up two granny smith apples and tossed them in lemon juice so they wouldn’t brown (that’s two fruits already; this is practically a salad). Then I sprinkled in brown sugar (about 1/3 cup) and generous sprinkles of cinnamon and nutmeg, and stirred till the apples were all coated in sugary goodness.

I melted butter in the bottom of a little baking dish and spread it out with a brush, then dumped in the coated apples.

In a new bowl I put about a 1/2 cup each of white flour, white sugar, and oats. I cut in about 3-4 Tbsp of butter and a pinch of salt, and sprinkled that over the apple mixture.

25 minutes in a 350 toaster oven = happy mama. Apple crisp for breakfast anyone?