Categories
Breakfast Dessert

Have a ‘hole’ lot of fun with baked donuts

Coffee donuts with a coffee glaze are great for breakfast or dessert.

Several weeks ago, I got the opportunity to meet Tina Ostrander, owner of Main Street Co. & Kitchen Corner in Newton. We sat down over a cup of coffee to talk about working together, which we were both pretty excited about.

And then the world shut down, and I was super nervous that the first week of our partnership—this week—would mean I might have trouble finding more recipes to try, and Kitchen Corner wasn’t going to be open for us to do anything fun together.

But I’ve been discovering that I have lots of random ingredients hanging out in my kitchen, and despite her brick-and-mortar being closed for the time being, Tina has an online store set up.

So, for my part, I started examining my pantry and realized that I, for some reason, have quite a few instant coffee packets, so I determined it was time for something with coffee flavor—and time for something sweet. I landed on a recipe for cake donuts with a coffee glaze that ended up being a fantastic recipe.

I found this recipe on the blog “Marsha’s Baking Addiction.” You can find the original post at https://marshasbakingaddiction.com/baked-coffee-doughnuts. I added extra vanilla and nutmeg in my version.

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Glazed Coffee Cake Donuts

Coffee donuts with a coffee glaze are great for breakfast or dessert.
Course Breakfast, Dessert
Keyword coffee, donuts, glaze

Ingredients

Donut Ingredients

  • 2 tablespoons instant coffee or make 1/4 cup strong coffee
  • 1 egg
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1/4 cup buttermilk or use regular milk with a touch of vinegar
  • 1/4 cup canola or vegetable oil
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 1 1/2 cups flour
  • 1 teaspoon baking powder
  • 1/4 teaspoon salt
  • 1/2 teaspoon nutmeg

Glaze Ingredients

  • 1/4 cup warm milk
  • 1 tablespoon instant coffee or use a tablespoon strong coffee
  • 1 teaspoon vanilla
  • 2 1/4 cups powdered sugar

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 400 degrees. Prepare a donut pan by spraying it with cooking spray.
  • If using instant coffee, dissolve it into 1/4 cup of hot water.
  • In a mixing bowl, beat the egg, sugar, buttermilk, oil, vanilla and coffee until smooth.
  • Beat in the flour, baking powder, salt and nutmeg until just combined and spoon the batter evenly between the six wells in your donut pan (this will fill them pretty much to the brim. If you’d rather have smaller donuts, you could fill them less and make another partial batch, too).
  • Bake for eight to 10 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in them comes out clean.
  • Let the donuts cool for about 10 minutes and then let them cool completely before glazing them.
  • For the glaze, in a shallow bowl, whisk the coffee, vanilla and milk until smooth, and then whisk in the powdered sugar, a little at a time, until you get the consistency you want. If it’s too thin, add more sugar. If it’s too thick, add a little more milk.
  • Dip the donuts into the glaze (just the tops, you don’t have to submerge them) and then place them on a wire rack to dry. I did two coatings on mine.
  • Once the glaze is dry, store any leftover donuts in an airtight container.

These were amazing. And I learned that I absolutely should never make them when only Joey and I are around to eat them, because they, embarrassingly, did not last more than a couple of days.

And, while Tina and I will have to wait on some of the in-person ideas we discussed a few weeks ago, I’m glad I can keep baking and she can still keep people’s kitchens stocked with needed supplies. If you need a donut pan, for instance, go visit her online store; she’s got ’em.

Also, if you’re bored and want to look back at some of my previous columns, I officially have my own website, and I’m still working on uploading my archives, so look for it to keep expanding over the next few weeks. You can visit it at spiceupkitchen.net.

Stay safe. Shop local online. And eat donuts.

This piece originally appeared in print on April 1, 2020.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

Categories
Cookies Dessert Snack

Make cookies almost too cute to bear

Bear paw cookies are cute but also have a rich flavor with a touch of coffee paired with chocolate.

It might be a side effect of becoming an aunt, but my eyes seem to be drawn to all kinds of cute things lately.

The cookie recipe I’m sharing with you this week was one of those cute items I found online and just had to try. I then immediately messaged my sister with a photo, noting that they’d be good child’s birthday party fare.

Considering my niece is only five months old, I might be jumping the gun a bit, but luckily, my sister never stifles my unbridled, “I’m going to spoil the stuffing out of you” attitude.

Of course, aside from being cute, these cookies were also super delicious, so even though I still have over six months to wait for my niece’s first birthday party, they were still worth making in the meantime.

This comes from the blog “Kitchen Fun with My Three Sons.” You can find the original at https://kitchenfunwithmy3sons.com/bear-paw-cookies/. I didn’t change the amounts on the ingredients, although I do think I ended up with a bit more than a teaspoon of instant coffee in mine.

Print

Bear Paw Cookies

Bear paw cookies are cute but also have a rich flavor with a touch of coffee paired with chocolate.
Course Dessert
Keyword bear paws, chocolate, coffee, cookies

Ingredients

  • 3/4 cup butter softened
  • 1 cup packed brown sugar
  • 1/2 cup sugar
  • 1 egg and 1 egg yolk
  • 1 tablespoon vanilla
  • 1 teaspoon instant coffee I used a single serving of Via from Starbucks
  • 1 teaspoon baking soda
  • 1 teaspoons cornstarch
  • 1/2 teaspoon salt
  • 2 cups flour
  • 1 bag dark chocolate melting wafers
  • 1 bag semi-sweet chocolate chips

Instructions

  • Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.
  • Line a couple baking sheets with parchment paper.
  • Cream the butter, brown sugar and sugar for a couple minutes until smooth and creamy.
  • Beat in the egg, egg yolk and vanilla.
  • Beat in the instant coffee, baking soda, cornstarch, salt and flour.
  • Scoop the dough by about a teaspoon-size onto the prepared cookie sheets, placing them about an inch apart (I started with much larger scoops—probably about tablespoon size—but my cookies spread quite a bit and were a lot larger than I wanted. You might need to experiment.).
  • Bake each batch for about 10 minutes or until the cookies are lightly browned.
  • After pulling the cookies from the oven, lightly press a melting wafer in the middle of each and then place three chocolate chips in a semi-circle along to the top of the wafer to create “claws.”
  • Let the cookies cool completely (the chocolate will need to set back up) before placing them into an airtight container.

If you’re not into coffee flavor, it does come through a decent amount in the finished cookies, so this may not be the recipe for you. But this same technique should work with any cookie dough that you wouldn’t mind having chocolate chips added into, so you’re not completely out of luck.

I’ve also seen white melting wafers, so if you would rather make polar bear paw prints instead, it would be easy to substitute in some white chocolate, too.

To be fair, I’m not sure if my little niece will be into bears at any point in her childhood, but since she’s related to me, I can guarantee she’ll be into cookies, so I think I’ll probably be able to talk her into eating a few either way. Of course, first I’ll have to wait on that set of teeth to come in.

This piece first appeared in print on April 12, 2018.

Spice Up Your Life is a weekly newspaper column written by Lindsey Young in south central Kansas. If you are interested in sponsoring this column, please contact us through the “Contact Lindsey” link at the top of the page.

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