raspberry jam filled doughnuts

It's doughnut time!   I promise that in real life I do eat more than just ice cream and doughnuts!  However, they are a couple of my favorites to make, so I'm sure there will be plenty more popping up here and there.

And yes....those are fresh raspberries you see!  What sorcery is this?  Well, it's called procrastination!  Ha!  I've had these photos sitting on my computer since the end of July, and now that I have this new blog sorted out, I finally got them ready to post.  So yes, there are fresh raspberries in the photos, although you don't need fresh ones for the recipe!

Now, the beauty of these doughnuts is that you can fill them with whatever jam or jelly you like (or whatever you have on hand).  We used our own homemade jam that we sell on our farm.  It's the best, if I do say so myself!

I think our favorite part of this whole process was filling the doughnuts with jam.  We went a little crazy, hence the jam that's oozing out of them in some of the photos.  #noregrets

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r a s p b e r r y    j a m - f i l l e d    d o u g h n u t s 
[by: Kelsey & Jordyn Siemens]

ingredients:

1/4 cup hot water (not boiling)

1/2 tsp sugar

2 1/4 tsp yeast

2/3 cup milk

1/4 cup white sugar

1 egg

3 Tbsp shortening

2 1/2 cups flour

*jam for filling (the amount will depend on how generous you are when filling your doughnuts)

*icing sugar for coating

Be generous and go crazy with your icing sugar!

*They freeze very well, so you can always pop them in the freezer before you add the sugar and jam. 

directions:

1)  In a small bowl, mix together hot water, sugar, and yeast set aside for about 10 minutes until nice and frothy.

2)  In a large bowl, whisk together yeast mixture, milk, sugar, salt, egg and shortening.

3)  Slowly whisk in 1 cup of flour.

4)  Gradually add in remaining flour (1 1/2 cups), half a cup at a time, stirring with a wooden spoon (or you can use your mixer and a dough hook) until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. *You may not need to use all of your flour!

5)  Knead by hand for about 5 minutes, or until your dough is nice and smooth.

6)  Place the dough into a greased bowl, cover with a clean dish towel, and place somewhere warm to rise until it has doubled in size (about half an hour).

7)  Turn the dough onto a floured surface, and use a rolling pin to gently roll it out to about 1/2" thickness.

8)  Cut dough using a circle cookie cutter.  Cover all doughnuts with the towel again, and let rise until doubled.  (We made some large and some small ones).

9)  Heat oil in a deep-fryer or a large electric skillet to 350 degrees (you can use a large, deep skillet on your stove, but it's harder to control the temperature of your oil safely).

10)  Very carefully, place your doughnuts into the hot oil.  Fry doughnuts on each side until they are a very light brown.

11)  Remove doughnuts from hot oil, and place on a cookie sheet lined with paper towel.

12)  Repeat until all the dough has been used, and allow doughnuts to cool completely.

13)  Fill a shallow dish (we used a pie plate), with icing sugar, and gently coat each doughnut with sugar until covered.

14)  Place jam into a piping bag with a small-medium tip. (the size of the tip isn't too important...it will just determine how much of a hole there will be left in your doughnut once you're done)

15)  Gently poke the icing tip into each doughnut, and fill with jam.  

*These are best served the day of, otherwise the icing sugar will soak into the doughnuts.

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Hope you're having a lovely weekend!

-kels

vanilla dip doughnuts

What can make a Monday morning a little bit better?  Doughnuts of course!

Although I do apologize that all I have to offer you is pictures of doughnuts....not actual doughnuts that you can eat.  Sorry about that!

Anyway, Jordyn and I are officially declaring that it is the Summer of doughnuts and ice cream.

Yep.  Doughnuts.  Ice cream.  So many doughnuts.  So much ice cream. There will probably definitely be doughnuts on top of ice cream.  We're just feeling so inspired lately, and recipe ideas for those two things just keep popping into our heads.  This is just the beginning.

(We will take no responsibility for weight gained, keyboards drooled on, or diets ruined in the next few months!)

Now, we thought we'd start out with a classic doughnut to get us going this Summer.  Vanilla Dip.  Oh how I love thee.  This was my favorite doughnut as a kid, and I still totally love it.  Call me boring....I say it's classic!

I also want to note that this was our first ever experience deep-frying doughnuts, and it was way easier (and less scary) than either of us thought it would be.  Yay!

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v a n i l l a   d i p  d o u g h n u t s

recipe by: Jordyn and Kelsey

Ingredients:

1/4 cup hot water (not boiling)

1/2 tsp sugar

2 1/4 tsp yeast

2/3 cup milk

1/4 cup white sugar

1 egg

3 Tbsp shortening

2 1/2 cups flour

Glaze:

2.5 icing sugar

3 tbsp half and half

1 tsp vanilla

sprinkles (totally not optional)

Directions:

1)  In a small bowl, mix together hot water, sugar, and yeast set aside for about 10 minutes until nice and frothy.

2)  In a large bowl, whisk together yeast mixture, milk, sugar, salt, egg and shortening.

3)  Slowly whisk in 1 cup of flour.

4)  Gradually add in remaining flour (1 1/2 cups), half a cup at a time, stirring with a wooden spoon (or you can use your mixer and a dough hook) until the dough pulls away from the sides of the bowl. *You may not need to use all of your flour!

5)  Knead by hand for about 5 minutes, or until your dough is nice and smooth.

6)  Place the dough into a greased bowl, cover with a clean dish towel, and place somewhere warm to rise until it has doubled in size (about half an hour).

7)  Turn the dough onto a floured surface, and use a rolling pin to gently roll it out to about 1/2" thickness.

8)  Cut with a doughnut cutter (or you can use two round cookie cutters, one large and one small).  Cover all doughnuts with the towel again, and let rise until doubled.

9)  Heat oil in a deep-fryer or a large electric skillet to 350 degrees (you can use a large, deep skillet on your stove, but it's harder to control the temperature of your oil safely).

10)  Very carefully, place your doughnuts into the hot oil.  Fry doughnuts on each side until they are a very light brown.

11)  Remove doughnuts from hot oil, and place on a cookie sheet lined with paper towel.

12)  Repeat until all the dough has been used, including the leftover doughnut holes from the middle of the doughnuts!

For the Glaze:

Mix together icing sugar, half and half, and vanilla until combined.  Dip doughnuts into glaze once cooled and top with sprinkles.

*We suggest testing one doughnuts with the glaze and then adjusting the thickness of the glaze until you're happy with it!

These doughnuts are best served the same day, but we found that they freeze very well when unglazed!

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Don't be afraid of deep-frying!  Just be extremely cautious, and it's best if there's someone that has experience around that can make sure you are doing everything safely.

I just visited the cutest doughnut shop in Vancouver, which has the quirkiest flavors of doughnuts, and I can't wait to try and replicate some of them.

If you have a doughnut flavor suggestion, please leave it below!

-kelsey & jordyn

[baked] apple cider donuts

I've been seeing a lot of Fall bucket lists going around the interwebs these days, and sometimes they make me chuckle. I live on a pumpkin patch where I pick apples for my job, we make apple cider on a weekly basis, there are hayrides every day of the week, and picking corn is kind of like a boring version of a corn maze.  Sooo....I've definitely crossed off most things on these bucket lists without even trying!  It reminds me not to take things for granted, and every day I feel so blessed to live and work in such a cool place.

However, one of the things on my Fall baking bucket list was to make apple cider donuts!  I had never actually heard of such a thing until I came across a post on tumblr about them.  I was instantly intrigued, and thought they sounded like the epitome of a Fall dessert.  Warm, cozy, fluffy donuts with apple cider and cinnamon?  Perfection!  

My expectations were cautiously high for these donuts, and I wasn't disappointed!  I also quite successfully convinced myself that because they were baked donuts (and not deep-fried), they must be healthy for you.  Am I right?

Apple Cider Baked Donuts
adapted from: eat, live, run

yields: 11-12 donuts

Ingredients:

2 cups all purpose flour

3/4 cup brown sugar

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp baking soda

1 tsp salt

2 tsp cinnamon

2 eggs

2 tbsp unsalted butter, softened

1/2 cup apple cider

1/4 cup buttermilk  [or 1/4 cup of milk with 1/2 tsp of vinegar....let stand for 5-10 minutes before using]

Topping:
2 tbsp butter, melted
1/4 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup white sugar
1 tbsp cinnamon (or to taste)

Directions:

1)  In a large bowl, mix together the flour, sugar, baking soda, baking powder, salt and cinnamon.

2)  In a smaller bowl, mix together the softened butter with the eggs until fluffy (doing this ensures that your butter doesn't re-solidify once the cold buttermilk and cider are added).  Add buttermilk and apple cider, and mix well.

3)  Pour wet ingredients into the dry, and stir until just blended.  Try not to overmix!

4)  Spread the batter into a greased donut pan.  I used a large spoon to drop the batter in, or placing your batter into a pastry bag to pipe into the pan makes the process nice and easy.  Fill each mold about 3/4 full.

5)  Bake at 350 degrees for 8-10 minutes, or until an inserted toothpick comes out clean. You may want to break open a test donut just to make sure the inside isn't gummy!

6)  For the topping: melt the butter in a bowl that will fit a donut inside it.  Then, dip each donut quickly into the butter, and then into the cinnamon sugar mixture.

*These are best on the first day, as they tend to get a bit soggy once you place them in a container.

Do you have your own version of a Fall bucket list?  I'd love to hear what's on them! 

-kels