chocolate-glazed pumpkin donuts

What is the perfect, chilly Fall morning breakfast you ask?

 

This was my first go at homemade donuts and they turned out just delicious!  I love making things that we normally store buy, and having it work out!  Not only are the ingredients all things that you already have in your pantry, but they're also BAKED which makes them *almost* healthy for you!  Haha! 

So with the coming of Fall, of course I've been pinning all sorts of pumpkin deliciousness!  And I just happened across this recipe for pumpkin donuts.....pumpkin donuts?!  Yes, pumpkin donuts!  Yum-o!!  

I made big ones like this:

 

And little adorable mini ones like this:

CHOCOLATE-GLAZED PUMPKIN DONUTS: 
 1/2 cup unsweetened applesauce
3 eggs
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin
1 tsp vanilla
1 3/4 cup all purpose flour
2 tsp cinnamon (you can just do one, but I'm a little cinnamon crazy)
1/2 tsp ginger
1/8 tsp ground clove
1 1/2 tsp salt
1 1/2 tsp baking powder

CHOCOLATE GLAZE:
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate ships
1/2 cup half & half or heavy cream
2 Tbsp salted butter

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray donut pan with cooking spray.  Blend together applesauce, eggs, sugars, pumpkin and vanilla.  Add in the dry ingredients.  Mix until smooth.  Now for the next part, I totally recommend doing it this way.  The batter is very thick and would be hard to spoon into your pan, especially if you're doing mini donuts.  So what you do is spoon the batter into a ziploc bag.  Then cut off the corner of the bag with scissors.  Now just squeeze your batter into your pans.  I did it this way and it was a BREEZE!   Bake for 9-11 minutes.

While the donuts are baking make your glaze.  Get out a small saucepan, add all the glaze ingredients and melt together.  You should have a shiny delicious pan of chocolate glaze.  Try not to eat it all before the donuts come out of the oven.  

Let the donuts cool when you take them out of the oven, if you're patient.  If you're not, ahem, at least wait until you can pick them up without burning your fingers, and dip the tops into the warm chocolate glaze.  Immediately sprinkle with toppings of your choice.  Devour.

Original recipe found here.

pinterest loves--pumpkin bars to die for

I found this recipe on Pinterest a few days ago.  It was a life changing moment.  Did you know that Pumpkin Bars can be life changing?  I didn't either.  Until I made these.  

These pumpkin bars....are just heavenly!  They are moist.  And pumkin-y.  And cinnamon-y.  And just delicious.  I have a feeling you're gonna love them!   Oh and they're ridiculously easy, double score!! 

Pumpkin Bars with Cream Cheese Frosting (print recipe)


Original recipe found here!  I tweaked it slightly to match our likes!)

2 cups flour

2 teaspoons baking powder

4 teaspoons cinnamon (I'm a crazy cinnamon freak so I doubled the cinnamon from the original recipe, just use 2 teaspoons if you're not a cinnamon freak too!)

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon baking soda

4 eggs

1 and 2/3 cups sugar

1 cup oil

1 can (15oz) pumpkin (not pumpkin pie filling)

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.  Spray a 15x11 baking dish (if you don't have this size, a 13x9 would probably work, you'll just have to bake it longer).  

Mix the eggs, sugar, oil and pumpkin with an electric mixer or with your trusty KitchenAid.  Slowly add baking powder, cinnamon, salt, baking soda and then flour.  Mix well!  

Pour into the 15x11 dish and bake for 25-30 minutes.  

While the deliciousness is baking, make your frosting.

Cream Cheese Frosting 

1 8oz. package of cream cheese (I use Neufchatel to cut back on the calories a bit!  I've tried fat free before and it's pretty nasty in comparison so we don't do that anymore!)

1/3 cup softened butter

4 cups powdered sugar

2 tsp pure vanilla extract

1 Tbsp milk

Mix together all ingredients with an electric mixer or KitchenAid.  Beat until smooth and fluffy!  Resist the urge to eat it by the spoonful. 

Cut a piece of cake while it's still warm and slather the cream cheese frosting on it!  Savor every mouthful and maybe go back for a second piece! 

 

diy loves--chalkboard clipboards

Having four little girls, our house produces a LOT of coloring pages! I mean, like, we probably go through about a tree a day in paper!

The problem is what to do with all the masterpieces?!  I feel bad just tossing them in the trash!  But let's be honest!  There are only so many scribble sheets a Mama can keep!

So I saw this idea on Pinterest and knew I had to try it!  It's so simple!  Go buy (or use one you already have) a clipboard (or 4 if you're me!).  I got the wood looking ones...you know, not the plastic ones!  Plastic might work too but I thought the wood (or whatever it is) would work better! I got my clipboards for $1.99 at Target!  Also buy a foamy brush and some chalkboard paint like this:

I bought my chalkboard paint at Hobby Lobby.  It was $3.99 I think and I used my 40% off coupon on it!  Cheap!!  Then, spread something paintable on your surface.  I used a Target bag.  That's right, classy!!  Then paint your clipboard.  How easy is that?  I just painted the front of the clipboard, I left the sides and back their pretty brown color.

Oh and I almost forgot!!  Buy some pretty ribbon or fabric that matches the decor in your house!  I bought an 1/8 of a yard of damask-y fabric and cut it into four strips.  It adds a little pretty, see?

Now tell your kids to color to their heart's content!  Each one has a clipboard, that doubles as a chalkboard, to hang their masterpieces from!  My oldest love drew a picture of our family.  An artist in the making: 

You can also leave little notes on them!  How fun is that?  


 

party loves--lemonade party

My twin girls turned 2 in March! I love doing themed parties but at 2, they didn't really care what I did! So I picked a lemonade/lemon theme! One of my fav things to do is browse Pinterest for party ideas! There are just gazillions of ideas out there. Party planning heaven!

So once I FINALLY decided on the theme (which is by FAR the hardest part of party planning!), I went crazy pinning and pinning wonderful ideas!  

I started with the invitations!  And I saw this super cute lemonade stand on Pinterest!  I thought, "Hey! We have pallets laying around outside, I bet the hubs and FIL can BUILD one of those for me!"  So I asked.  And they produced this loveliness:

Isn't it just the best?  It was perfect for the pictures on the invites and perfect for some decor at the party!  My sweet friend Lezley is a fabulous photographer and took all the pictures for their invitations and at their party! 

Then I started pinning foods to have.  There are a TON of lemon sweets ideas!  And yellow foods.  It was so fun finding stuff!  Here's what we wound up having:

Lemon Cake Balls

--with lovely yellow striped ribbon

Lemon Burst Cookies

Recipe found here! 

 Lemon Tea Cookies

These were tasty!!  Recipe found here!  You like those little name cards I made?!  So easy!  And adds such a sweet touch!

Deviled Eggs!

This one was just for the colors!

Strawberry Lemonade Cupcakes!

The frosting on these was eaten by spoonfuls!  Divine!  Recipe found here! 

Just some decorations using the star of the party!

Party Favors!

The twins got to give away little party bags with lemonade cooler drinks and bracelets! 

Matching Flowers!

Matching water bottle labels and pink stripe straws!

Um, she is SO my daughter!

Lemonade stand, front and center!

Overall, lemonade was a super fun theme for a party!  The more ideas out there, the better! 

pinterest loves--blueberry buttermilk muffins

This recipe turned out to be pretty involved, but they sure are tasty!  The streusel topping is my favorite part....butter and sugar....how can you go wrong?! 

So here is my recipe, tweaked slightly to fit my likes!  Oh and of course I doubled the recipe--twice the muffins for practically half the work!  Sweet!
 

Blueberry Buttermilk Muffins (print recipe)
(this is the doubled recipe, half it if you want!)

Streusel Topping
6 T white sugar
6 T brown sugar
2/3 cup flour
1 stick hard butter, cut into pieces

Muffins
2 cups blueberries (I used frozen and also should've used 4 cups but only wanted 2)
2 1/4 cups  plus 1 teaspoon sugar
1 tablespoon water
5 cups  unbleached all-purpose flour
5 teaspoons baking powder
2 teaspoon table salt
4 large eggs
8 tablespoons (1 stick) salted butter, melted and cooled slightly
1/2 cup vegetable oil
2 cup buttermilk
4 teaspoons vanilla extract

Preheat oven to 425 degrees!

Take about a cup to a cup and a half of the blueberries and put them in a small pan.  Add the water and 1 tsp of water.  Bring to a simmer for a few minutes until the blueberries reduce into a sticky, syrupy goodness!  Set aside until you need them later on!

Mix together all the wet-ish ingredients!  Add the dry ingredients, doing flour last.  It's okay if there are some lumps!  Lumps are good, it means you didn't over mix!  Add the rest of your blueberries and if you used fresh, gently mix them in!  If you used frozen blueberries like me, just have at it!

Next fill your muffin cups with the batter!  About 2/3 full is good!  If you don't have a muffin scoop, you should get one!  They're great for muffins and cupcakes and even large cookies!!  Here is the one I have!

Next comes the sorta tricky part.  You're gonna need the blueberry syrupy stuff you made at the beginning!  Put about a teaspoon on top of each unbaked muffin.  Then take a knife or some pointy object and swirl it in with a figure eight motion!  Most of mine stayed on top, which was fine with me!  Still tasty!

Now you need to make your streusel topping.  Combine all ingredients and use your fingers to combine until you have little pea size chunks of butter and sugar!  Sprinkle it on the muffins!

Bake for about 15 minutes! 

Take them out, wait about 10 minutes, then lick the streusel topping off the top....wait no, get a big glass of milk and enjoy the whole scrumptious muffin together! 

Link to the original muffin recipe on A Cook's Quest!