Baked Pumpkin Donuts

Posted by The Sweet Life in baking, doughnuts, pumpkin March 5, 2012

Hi friends! I survived the totally non-dramatic drama of last week, and I’m happy to say that things are looking up! Computer is fixed, brand-spanking-new camera is in my possession, and Peanut Butter Cheerios are on sale at CVS. Oh, and we’re leaving for Paris in 2 days.

Count it: t-w-o. I might actually die. But not actually because obv I’m already panicked about my flight and getting hit by a scooter and getting mugged by gypsies and any other bad things that happen to tourists abroad. I take it back, okay???

So, um, these donuts?

These donuts make me do a happy dance. They make me say “hoohoo!” like the Pillsbury Doughboy. They make me do two Jillian Michaels workouts in a row so that I can eat five of them. They make it okay that in order to fix my computer, my good friends at Apple had to wipe my hard drive. It’s fine, life is good! We have donuts.

Tell me you don’t want to nuzzle your face in that cinnamon sugar. TELL ME. You can’t.

I know, I know…it’s totally not pumpkin season. But if you happened to buy 85 cans of pumpkin in October and happen to have 72 of those cans still kicking around in the back of your cabinet…this is the recipe for you. Because you can really NEVER go wrong with pumpkin and cinnamon sugar and butter, no matter what the time of year.

Baked Pumpkin Donuts (adapted very slightly from Martha Stewart’s Pumpkin Doughnut Muffins)

yield: 18 donuts

Ingredients

3 cups all-purpose flour
2 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon cinnamon
1/3 cup buttermilk
1 1/4 cups pure pumpkin puree
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
10 tablespoons unsalted butter, softened to room temperature
3/4 cup light brown sugar
2 large eggs

Cinnamon-sugar coating

1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 cup brown sugar
2 1/2 teaspoons cinnamon
5 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted

Directions

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Coat a donut pan with cooking spray (you could also make these in muffin form, in which case you should coat a muffin tin with cooking spray). In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, nutmeg, and cinnamon. In a small bowl, stir to combine buttermilk, pumpkin puree, and vanilla.
In a large bowl or the bowl of a stand mixer, beat butter and brown sugar on medium high until fluffy. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the eggs one at a time, beating after each addition. With the mixer on low, add flour in three batches, alternating with the pumpkin mixture. Beat for 30 seconds to fully combine.
Spoon the batter into the donut pan, filling each well about 2/3 full (~1/4 cup batter). For a six-donut pan, you will need to bake in three batches. Bake for 15 minutes, or until the donut springs back to the touch and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean.
Allow the donuts to cool in the pan for 7-10 minutes, then remove one donut at a time to brush with melted butter and toss in the cinnamon sugar coating. Allow to cool fully on a wire rack. Repeat until all donuts are coated.

Mini Pumpkin Cakes

Posted by The Sweet Life in baking, pumpkin October 17, 2011

When I was at home a few weekends ago, my dad got up at like four AM to go to a flea market. I asked him to keep an eye out for retro kitchen things, and he returned with some cool/weird/GREAT stuff, including this old scale

for which I have no use other than to weigh 8kg of grapes and/or 21lbs of steak. But it sure is fun to look at.

And, this stack of mini Jello molds,

to which I said: Do I LOOK like a 1950s housewife named Bitsy to you??

Who uses Jello molds anymore???

Luckily my mom pointed out that these could be used as mini bundt cake pans, which is an adorable idea and proves that my parents are wiser than me.

Something else I realized?

Fill these babies with pumpkin cake batter, flip ‘em over, and you’ve got mini pumpkin cakes!

The only thing left to do…

Is glaze.

Mini Pumpkin Cakes (adapted from Joy of Baking)

(yield 12-15 mini cakes or cupcakes)

Ingredients

1/2 cup unsalted butter, room temperature
1 cup brown sugar, packed
2 eggs
1 cup canned pumpkin
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
1/4 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
1/2 cup buttermilk, room temperature

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Grease your mini cakes pans OR line a muffin tin with paper liners.
In a medium bowl, sift flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and pumpkin pie spices.
In a large bowl, beat butter and sugar until light and fluffy. Add eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition. Scrape down the sides of the bowl and add the vanilla and pumpkin puree. Mix until incorporated.
Add the flour mixture to the butter+sugar mixture in three batches, alternating with buttermilk. Begin and end with flour. Stir until just combined.
Fill cake pans 2/3 of the way. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Allow to cool in pans for 10 minutes, then remove and allow to cool completely before topping with glaze.

Pumpkin Spice Glaze

1 1/2 cups confectioners sugar
1/2 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
2-3 teaspoons milk

Whisk ingredients until smooth and runny, adding more milk if needed.

Pumpkin Cake Balls

Posted by The Sweet Life in cute, dessert, pumpkin October 11, 2011

Did you ever play “Momma had a baby and her head popped off“? You know, that totally weird and random game where you decapitate dandelions and sing a little song about it?

I invented that. Except I originally called it “Barbie had a baby and her head popped off”.

Seriously! Google it. You won’t find my name (or anyone else’s), but that’s because this is the first time I’m coming forward as “anonymous inventor of Momma had a baby and her head popped off”.

I invented it when I was playing Barbies with my bestie one day and my {faulty} Barbie was in labor and her head fell off. Clever, eh?

Mike (and my mom, and pretty much anyone I tell this story to) thinks I *might* be remembering this event a bit incorrectly and it’s *possible* that I heard “Momma had a baby and her head popped off” from someone else and simply incorporated it into my play. But to them I say, pooh pooh!

Similar to my innovative dandelion decapitation song, I’m also 99.99% sure I am the first person to invent pumpkin cake balls and they will soon overtake the world. I haven’t bothered to Google-check this fact as I feel that discovering someone else had the idea of combining pumpkin and cake balls first would be a pretty serious blow to my ego.

Regardless of origin, these are the nummiest cake balls I’ve ever encountered. The only thing better than mixing cake and frosting is mixing cake and PUMPKIN and frosting. SoooooooooooO good.

You can even make these if you are on a diet because pumpkin replaces half the usual amount of frosting in the recipe, so technically these are a health food.

Pumpkin Cake Balls (yield: ~30 cake balls)

Ingredients

1 box white or yellow cake mix
3 tablespoons + 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
1 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs
1/3 cup oil
1 cup water
3/4 cup canned vanilla frosting
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice
candy corn

Directions

Mix cake according to directions on box (with eggs, water, and oil), but replace one egg with 3 tablespoons of pumpkin and a teaspoon of baking powder. Stir in pumpkin pie spice. Bake as directed.
Allow the cake to cool completely, then crumble until there are no large pieces of cake left. Stir in 3/4 cup frosting and 1/2 cup pumpkin until incorporated.
Form the mix into small balls, then dip in white chocolate candy melts.
Decorate with candy corn. Store in refrigerator.

Pumpkin Muffins

Posted by The Sweet Life in baking, pumpkin October 3, 2011

Guys, I might have to start Baby Mondays.

Just kidding. I would inevitably post 129482 baby pictures of myself because I believe I was obvi the cutest baby ever to grace the baby world, even though its common knowledge that most babies are only cute to their parents.

But there is ONE more Squishy McSquish I need to share. And a recipe too!

Meet Skylar, who belongs to Tracey at my school.

Here is Skylar sitting in the Stanley Cup because she is a baller.

Here is Skylar with a party on her head in an attempt to distract us all from THOSE. CHEEKS.

Nice try, Sky.

Moral of the story is Miss Skylar can’t eat dairy or soy, which means Miss Tracey can’t eat dairy or soy, which means I have to get creative in my baking.

But not too creative, because luckily I found this super simple recipe for pumpkin muffins, without…you guessed it!.. dairy or soy.

This recipe is so easy and makes light, fluffy, perfectly-pumpkin-spicy muffins. Only 10 ingredients!

Pumpkin Muffins (adapted from Smitten Kitchen)

yield: 12 muffins

Ingredients

1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup pumpkin puree
1/3 cup vegetable oil (you could substitute applesauce for the oil)
2 eggs
1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and allspice)
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup white sugar
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt

Directions

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Put 12 liners in a muffin tin. In a large bowl, whisk together pumpkin, oil, eggs, pumpkin pie spice, sugars, and baking soda until smooth.
In a separate bowl, combine flour and baking powder. Add the flour to the pumpkin mixture and stir until just combined. Do not overmix!
Divide batter among muffin cups. Bake for 25-30 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean. Allow to cool and serve warm or at room temperature.

PS- While we’re talking babies, can you guess who this nugget is??

Cinnamon Pumpkin Macarons

Posted by The Sweet Life in baking, cute, pumpkin, Uncategorized November 23, 2010

If at first you don’t succeed,

{Sad, stumpy, lumpy macaron attempt #1}

Try, try again!

{Happy, smooth, perfect macaron attempt #2}

I’m going to blame the residual effects of Pete the Cat on my choice to not have a minor breakdown when my macarons came out of the oven looking like (for lack of a better word) poo, and instead chose to dust myself off, separate some more egg whites, and try again.

And it’s a good thing I did! Macarons are so darn temperamental. Some still ended up looking like volcanos:

But for the most part, batch number two was pretty adorable. I followed this recipe from Eat, Live, Run (new fave blog!), but swapped the raspberry and rose for 1/4 tsp pumpkin spice in the macaron batter and pumpkin for the filling.

Some were filled with a mixture of chocolate and pumpkin puree (uh, YUM).

And others, Trader Joe’s pumpkin cream cheese (which should definitely become a staple in your household – thanks Miss Tracey!).

Macaroon, french macaroon, macaron – whatever you want to call it, these little guys are SO cute and SOO tasty.

And if at first your macarons don’t succeed – try, try again! It will be worth it – bon appetit!

Pumpkin Spice Granola

Posted by The Sweet Life in breakfast, pumpkin November 12, 2010

I brought back my love for pumpkin just enough to whip up some pumpkin spice granola. Granola is one of my favorite things to make because its healthy (aka less than 2 sticks of butter), easy, and a big batch will provide me with breakfast or snack for weeks! This particular granola is especially healthy because the pumpkin takes the place of most of the oil used in regular granola recipes. It also uses pumpkin seeds in place of nuts so I can bring it for breakfast at my nut-free school. Score and double-score!

Here’s what I did:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

In a large bowl, mix together:

4 cups old-fashioned rolled oats

1 cup raw unsalted pumpkin seeds

1 cup dried cranberries

In a separate, medium-sized bowl, whisk:

3/4 cup pumpkin puree

1 tbsp vegetable oil

2 tbsp pure maple syrup

1/4 cup brown sugar

2 tsp pumpkin pie spice

1/2 tsp salt

Stir the wet ingredients into the dry. Spread out over a large baking sheet. Bake for 35-40 minutes, stirring every 15 minutes or so, until golden brown.

At around 25 minutes, I also added 1/2 cup of unsweetened shredded coconut to add a bit more flavor.

That’s it! Easy as pie…

pumpkin pie

The Time I Fell Out of Love with Pumpkin

Posted by The Sweet Life in pumpkin November 4, 2010

This is a true story.

Two weeks ago I fell out of love with pumpkin.

I KNOW! I know. Take a second to pick your jaw up off the floor, gather your thoughts, and get ready to believe it…

It all began with some pumpkin, some caramel, and a weekend with too many hours spent in the kitchen. I had two recipes I want to tackle: this one for cupcakes and another for salted pumpkin caramels. I did in fact make both treats.

It goes without saying that the caramels were PHE-nomenal. Top ten best caramels I’ve ever tasted. Like pumpkin cookie dough batter minus the raw egg and fear of salmonella. So, SO delicious.

So I ate two. Then two more. Then some cupcakes. Then some frosting. Then some more caramels.

Before I knew it my tummy was a-rumblin’* and my brain was on overload telling me: NO. MORE. PUMPKIN. THINGS.

And that’s how it happened. I fell out of love with pumpkin.

I blame it on the extreme deliciosity of this recipe and my utter lack of self control. So here is my message to you:

Make these caramels. Despite the fact that this recipe yields 64 treats, limit yourself to one or two – three if you’ve had a small breakfast. Share half the caramels with people at your work. Then have a loved one hide the rest in the freezer and CALL IT A DAY. Don’t look back.

*Understatement of the year

Wildlife Wednesday: Jack-o-Lantern Edition

Posted by The Sweet Life in cute, holidays, pumpkin October 27, 2010

Obviously mine is the one that says treat

Domenica’s, Fina’s, mine, Mike’s (who knew he was such an artiste?)

Pumpkin Cupcakes with Salted Caramel Buttercream Frosting

Posted by The Sweet Life in baking, cupcakes, pumpkin October 24, 2010

Well, my friends… I really outdid myself this time. I have a new favorite cupcake combination. It *almost* rivals the best cupcake I’ve ever had from Praline.