Posts tagged ‘Other Sweets’

Jul 17

Pillsbury Biscuit Donuts

When I first heard that one could make donuts out of Pillsbury’s refrigerated biscuit dough, I had to give it a go. It didn’t seem to make much sense, after all, this is a biscuit that you eat with dinner, not dessert!

It took me a while to get around to making these. I think I was a little nervous as I’ve never fried anything before using a big pan of very hot oil. As it turned out, these were very simple to make and I would most certainly make donuts this way again.

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I used Pillsbury brand refrigerated buttermilk biscuit dough; the one I chose came 8 biscuits to a tin. I took them all out, laid them on a cookie sheet and flattened them slightly with the palm of my hand. I used one of my large metal pastry decorating tips to cut a hole in the middle of each biscuit and then let the dough sit for 10 minutes (I read about resting the dough somewhere, but I can’t find where it was now!).

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While I was fixing up the biscuit dough, I was heating the oil, about 2-inches high in a heavy pan, to 375F using a candy/deep fry thermometer. I put the biscuits in the oil, I did it one by one, for about one minute on each side.

I was so surprised at how fast they cooked and how big they plumped up. They turned a nice golden brown! I took them out and let them sit on paper towels to absorb excess oil. I then left them to cool while I made the chocolate glaze to dip them in (I cut the original glaze recipe in half).

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Like I said, I’m totally surprised by these. While they still have a hint of taste of a regular Pillsbury buttermilk biscuit, the addition of the sweet chocolate glaze covers it up mostly and you’ve got one nice and easy donut. The texture is crunchy on the outside, and soft in the inside. And yes, they still have the appearance of a regular biscuit in the inside!

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These were a real winner with my family, and like I said, they were super easy and I would definitely make these again. In fact, I find it hard not to pick up a tin of biscuit dough when I pass by that section in the store!

Pillsbury Biscuit Donuts
Adapted from myself

Ingredients
1 tin refrigerated buttermilk biscuit dough
Vegetable oil

Method
Pour enough oil to cover at least 2 inches in the bottom of a heavy pan. Using a deep fry thermometer, heat oil to 375F. Do not leave unattended.

While oil is heating, open biscuit tin and lay each biscuit on a cookie sheet. Flatten each one slightly with the palm of your hand. Use a small circle cutter to cut a hole in the middle of each biscuit; keep the holes, you can fry them as well. Let biscuit dough rest for 10 minutes.

Carefully place donuts, one or two at a time, into the oil. Cook for about 1 minute on each side, or until golden brown. Using a slotted spoon, carefully lift donuts out of the oil and place onto paper towels to drain and cool completely. Once cool, coat the donuts in chocolate glaze (recipe follows).

Chocolate Donut Glaze
Adapted from Recipezaar
Makes enough to coat 8 donuts

Ingredients
2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons unsalted butter, softened
1 cup confectioners’ sugar
1/4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
2 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons hot water
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
Sprinkles, optional

Method
Combine the butter with the powdered sugar in a medium bowl and blend with an electric mixer.

Add the vanilla and hot water. Mix until smooth.

Melt the chocolate chips in a microwave-safe bowl in the microwave for 30 seconds. Stir, then microwave another 15-30 seconds and stir again until completely melted. Be careful not to burn the chocolate. Add to the plain glaze mixture. Blend until smooth.

When the donuts have cooled, dip each top surface into the glaze and then flip over and cool on a plate until the glaze firms up, about 15 minutes. If desired, add some sprinkles!

Jul 10

7 Comments

Popsicles

We’ve been having a lot of fun with our popsicle mold these past few weeks. The weather has been very warm and it’s nice to come inside and cool off with a popsicle. This post is a collection of the popsicle recipes we’ve used lately. Click on the photos if you’d like to see a larger view of the popsicles.

Strawberry Watermelon Popsicles
Adapted from myself
Makes enough for 4-6 popsicles

Ingredients
About 1 cup chopped seedless watermelon
A handful of fresh hulled strawberries
A splash of lemon or lime juice
About 3-5 tablespoons powdered sugar, to taste

Method
Place all ingredients into a blender and blend until smooth. Pour into popsicle molds and freeze for at least 5 hours.

Mocha Popsicles
Adapted from Eating Out Loud
Makes enough for about 8 popsicles

These were really yummy! I never had thought about freezing coffee for popsicles, but I’m glad I came across this recipe. The white tip is a mix of sweetened condensed milk, whole milk and vanilla extract, while the coffee part is strong brewed coffee, sweetened condensed milk and cocoa powder. Everything was perfect with these, except I added about 1/2-1 teaspoon more cocoa powder.

Creamy Jello Popsicles
Adapted from SparkRecipes
Makes enough for 4 popsicles

Now these were really interesting. I wasn’t sure what sort of texture these were going to have, knowing that Jello is supposed to be wobbly. These popsicles are a mix of Jello (the small box), water and vanilla yogurt. The texture was only barely wobbly and the popsicles do not freeze solid – you can bite straight into one. I would recommend that you freeze these overnight and be careful when unmolding them, as the sticks can easily pop out of the popsicle itself, leaving the popsicle inside the mold (I know from experience!)!

The red popsicle picture above is raspberry, but we’ve also made an alien-green lime one!

Jello Pudding Pops
Adapted from Recipezaar
Makes enough for about 5 popsicles

These popsicles are very similar in texture to the regular Jello popsicles above, but much creamier. You’ll need to be extra careful with unmolding these, and also I’d recommend freezing these overnight as well. I’d love to try these with banana pudding, or with a vanilla-chocolate swirl!

Jun 19

4 Comments

Chocolate Raspberry Jello Pie

When I was living with my parents and in my later years of high school, there was a watermelon Jello pie recipe that I just loved. I made it at family gatherings and a few cookouts over the years. I haven’t been able to find watermelon Jello anymore, but this particular recipe will accomodate any flavor of Jello.

So, I decided to try a chocolate raspberry Jello pie. Everything was done exactly the same as the watermelon pie recipe, except I used a chocolate graham cracker crust and raspberry Jello (and of course, I didn’t decorate the pie like a watermelon!).

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The only thing I did that was not in the recipe was to spread a layer of warmed hot fudge topping on the pie crust. I let it harden back up in the refrigerator before pouring over the pie filling. However, I found that the fudge layer did not stay solid as I expected at the bottom of the filling – it poured out when I cut the pie! So I would not add the hot fudge layer next time.

I drizzled a good amount of chocolate sauce over the pie before serving as well! It was so yummy, and brought back memories from the watermelon pie days.

If you’re after a very cooling and light dessert this summer, this pie, in any Jello flavor you want, would be the perfect choice.

Jun 16

6 Comments

Peanut Butter Chocolate Chip Pancakes

I really have been in a pancake mood lately. I really liked my chocolate chip pancakes and wanted to make them again, but I thought I’d do something different this time – make peanut butter chocolate chip pancakes!

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The peanut butter pancake recipe comes from Sunny Anderson; I just added the chocolate chips myself. I made the batter, dropped the batter into the frying pan, and then sprinkled about one teaspoon of mini chocolate chips on the batter in the frying pan.

The blackberry syrup, or even any other flavor of berry syrup, to accompany the peanut butter pancakes would have been fantastic, but I had no berries at the time and just used maple syrup.

Jun 4

1 Comment

Double Chocolate Chip Muffins

I’ve been trying to find a good chocolate chocolate chip muffin recipe but haven’t found many recipes I’d like to try. I came across this one recently, however, and decided to try it. It comes from My Household Capers.

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I didn’t use any white chocolate chips, just semisweet chocolate chips. I thought it was quite nice, although a little drier than I expected.

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Like I said, it is a nice muffin, but just not quite what I was after. I’d love to find a recipe that would make a muffin like the Otis Spunkmeyer double chocolate chip muffin!

May 31

3 Comments

Strawberry Crumble Muffins

I’ve had this recipe bookmarked for a little while and finally decided to give it a go this past week. It’s a recipe for beatiful-looking strawberry muffins from Noob Cook. Not only are the photos fantastic, but the muffins appeared to be what I consider the perfect muffin, with nice golden tops.

I followed the recipe for the muffins, except I halved the recipe. I thought it was odd that the recipe stated it would make 16 small muffins, yet there were 3 cups of flour in the recipe (seemed a bit much flour for just 16 small muffins!). By halving the recipe, I ended up with exactly 12 muffins from a regular-sized muffin/cupcake pan.

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Now you’re looking at the picture and wondering what that stuff is on top of my strawberry muffins – that wasn’t in the original recipe! No, it wasn’t. This was my own addition. It’s leftover crumble topping from some individual cherry and strawberry crumbles I had made.

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I’m sure the muffins would have been great on their own, but I didn’t want to waste the leftover crumble topping I had. It would be safe to say that the sole reason I made these muffins was for the leftover crumble topping!

The crumble topping, I believe, was the final touch to these wonderful muffins. The topping gave each bite a satisfying crunch. With brown sugar being one of the ingredients in the topping, it also gave the muffin a little bit more taste.

The muffin itself was incredible! It was actually soft and moist! I was really surprised. The only thing I would change about this recipe next time is I would add maybe another 1/4 cup or so of diced strawberries.

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Actually, maybe next time I’d use fresh strawberries as well. I used frozen for these muffins. I don’t know if fresh berries would have made a difference, but the frozen ones really lost their color and turned very pale. They also became sort of stringy, as you can see in the above photo. Next time I’d try fresh and see if they retain their color and texture a bit better.

As for the recipes, head over to Noob Cook for the muffin recipe. If you’d like the crumble topping recipe, see below. Note that you could also use this topping on other flavors of muffins as well.

Crumble Topping For Strawberry Muffins
Makes enough for a generous topping on 12 muffins, probably more!

Ingredients
60g all purpose flour
50g old-fashioned oats
35g light brown sugar
pinch of salt
60g unsalted butter, softened and cut into cubes

Method
Mix together flour, oats, brown sugar, salt and butter. Rub mixture together with fingers until the mixture resembles coarse breadcrumbs.

Prepare muffin batter according to muffin recipe. Spoon batter into muffin/cupcake pans. Sprinkle crumble topping generously on top of muffin batter and bake as directed in recipe.

The crumble topping is most crunchy on the same day that it is prepared and baked. It softens up quite a bit and loses its crunch the next day due to the moistness of the muffins.

May 21

1 Comment

Rice Krispies Treats

I had a craving for Rice Krispies treats, so I made a batch over the weekend. It’s been years since I’ve eaten these, and believe it or not, I’ve never actually made them myself before.

I contemplated doctoring up the original recipe, with chocolate chips or whatever, but no, I definitely wanted the plain old original recipe. And I wasn’t disappointed!

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They are so easy to make and so quick. The most annoying part of it, I’d have to say, is the stickiness of it! Make sure you butter or spray any utensils you use for this, and also be sure to butter or spray the pan you spread the sticky treats out in. It will make your life so much easier!

You can find the original Rice Krispies treats recipe on any box of Rice Krispies cereal, or find it now at Recipezaar.

May 9

3 Comments

Strawberries & Chocolate

Just one month ago, my mother-in-law, who lives in Australia, surprised us with an Easter cookie bouquet; she surprised us again yesterday by sending me a Mother’s Day gift – two boxes full of huge fresh strawberries and two jars of fudge dipping sauce!

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They were packaged nicely from Cherry Moon Farms. In each box were 16 strawberries, so 32 strawberries in all, and in each box was one jar of fudge dipping sauce.

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And when I said they were huge, I did mean that they were huge!

The fudge dipping sauce is an award-winning gourmet chocolate sauce from Fudge Fatale. It is a very nice sauce that is not too sweet and goes perfect with the strawberries. The sauce is spreadable at room temperature and needs a quick zap in the microwave to achieve a dipping consistency. It would also be nice over ice cream, I imagine!

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There are recipes on the Fudge Fatale webiste that are worth checking out as well. I have two jars of this sauce and will definitely have some leftover, so I hope to try out a couple of those recipes.

This was a very sweet and totally unexpected Mother’s Day gift! What sweet treats have you received or given for Mother’s Day this year?

May 4

8 Comments

Mint Oreo Truffles

This is my first go at Oreo truffles – it probably won’t be my last! I decided to use mint Oreos, after I couldn’t find strawberry Oreos (I thought they had quit making them, but I’ve seen people using them again recently).

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I cut the popular Oreo truffles recipe in half – you can find that recipe in this post – because a package of mint Oreos is smaller than a package of regular Oreos.

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I used 21 mint Oreos, 4-5 ounces cream cheese and 4 ounces Ghirardelli semisweet chocolate. I believe the extra cream cheese I added to the crumbled cookie mixture was a little too much – the truffles are gooier than they’re supposed to be (but that’s fine with me, they’re still very yummy!). Also, 4 ounces of the Ghirardelli chocolate wasn’t quite enough to coat all the truffles. I ended up with 20 truffles.

Apr 30

1 Comment

Rustic Apple Tart

This recipe comes from a KitchenAid stand mixer instruction manual; the photo looked so nice that I knew I would eventually get around to making it. It’s a rustic apple tart and includes making your own pie crust, which is something I’ve never done before.

It actually ended up being quite easy, although I wish I would have added one more tablespoon of water to the dough (it says to add 5-6 tablespoons of water and I added 5).

For the apple filling, the recipe calls for 2 1/2 pounds, or 6 large tart apples. I found that this was way too much apple. I mounded the apples in the center of the pie crust, thinking that it must cook down and shrink quite a bit. The tart in the photo does not have a mound of apple filling anywhere near as large as mine was!

Well, everything turned out quite nice, except I didn’t get a nice brown pie crust. Maybe I should have brushed it with egg before baking? I didn’t get a photo of the freshly baked tart because it was late at night and there wasn’t enough light to get a post-worthy photo. I did get this photo today though at lunchtime of a slice of the tart with a couple of scoops of vanilla ice cream.

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It is a really nice-tasting apple tart though. It was definitely worth making and I’m quite sure I’ll be making it again, although I’m going to use less apples; maybe I’ll try 4 large apples, instead of 6.

KitchenAid Pie Pastry
Adapted from KitchenAid stand mixer instruction manual
Makes 2 8- or 9-inch pie crusts

Ingredients
2 1/4 cups all-purpose flour
3/4 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup shortening, well-chilled
2 tablespoons butter or margarine, well-chilled
5 to 6 tablespoons cold water

Method
Place flour and salt in mixer bowl. Attach bowl and flat beater to mixer. Turn to stir speed and mix about 15 seconds. Cut shortening and butter into pieces and add to flour mixture. Turn to stir speed and mix until shortening particles are size of small peas, about 30 to 45 seconds.

Continuing on stir speed, add water, 1 tablespoon at a time, mixing until ingredients are moistened and dough begins to hold together. Divide dough in half. Pat each half into a smooth ball and flatten slightly. Wrap in plastic wrap. Chill in refrigerator for 15 minutes.

Rustic Apple Tart
Adapted from KitchenAid stand mixer instruction manual
Serves 8

Ingredients
2 1/2 pounds (about 6 large) tart green apples, peeled, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1/4 cup granulated sugar
1/3 cup light brown sugar
1/2 cup flour
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/4 cup (1/2 stick) butter, softened
1 unbaked 9-inch pie crust (see above recipe, or use your own)

Method
Toss together apples, lemon juice and granulated sugar. Set aside.

Place all remaining ingredients, except pie crust, in mixer bowl. Attach bowl and flat beater to mixer. Turn to speed 2 (or low) and mix until crumbly. Set aside.

Roll out pie crust into a 13-inch circle. Transfer to baking sheet (it’s okay if pastry hangs over edge of baking sheet).

Gently mound apples in center of pastry, leaving a 2-inch border of dough on all sides. Sprinkle apples with cinnamon sugar mixture. Fold pastry up over filling, pleating as necessary to fit snugly around apples. Gently press dough to filling, reinforcing shape.

Bake at 400F until pastry is golden brown and apples are tender, for about 30 minutes. Cool tart on baking sheet on wire rack for 10 minutes; serve warm.

Apr 9

8 Comments

Pumpkin Pancakes

Trying to use up the rest of the canned pumpkin, I’ve been on a pumpkin recipe search. After pumpkin bread, comes pumpkin pancakes. I’m pretty sure I’ve never eaten pumpkin pancakes before but after trying this recipe I’m definitely going to be making them again.

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The recipe is a highly rated one at allrecipes.com. I didn’t change a thing about the recipe. I took the advice from one of the comments and did not thin out the batter with more milk; the comment stated that the batter is supposed to be thick and the addition of more milk would dull the taste of the pumpkin. Instead, the comment said that the batter was supposed to be poured into the pan, then spread out with the back of a spoon.

The comment section has a lot of other tips and their personal changes to the recipe as well, definitely worth a read.

The recipe says it yields 6 servings, and stated that it made 12 pancakes. Following the recipe, I used 1/4 cup of batter per pancake and ended up with 17 pancakes! Pictured above is only 16, however, as I ate the very first one! They taste great with a bit of butter and maple syrup. :)