Chocolate-Glazed Cake Donuts

Last weekend, I had a hankering for donuts. This was a pretty easy recipe to throw together. The only issue was that the recipe said it would make 6 full-sized donuts. And I'm pretty sure my donut pans are full-sized. So when I started piping the batter in the pan, I thought to myself, "Dang, this is a lot of batter for just six donuts. But Mama Pea's recipes are always legit... so I guess this is all for six donuts."

Wrong. Very, very wrong. These donuts had the worst muffin top I've ever seen. Ever. Note to self: trust your instincts, dummy. 

Even though they look ridiculous and I felt like a moron, they were still delicious. 

This recipea comes from the Peas and Thank You blog.

Ingredients (Makes 6 full-size donuts)

• 1 c. unbleached organic flour
• 1/2 c. whole wheat pastry flour
• 1 T. baking powder
• 1/4 t. salt
• dash of cinnamon
• 1/2 t. ground nutmeg
• 1/4 c. vegan margarine (i.e. Earth Balance), melted
• 3/4 c. non-dairy milk
• 1/2 t. vanilla extract
• 3/4 c. organic sugar

Chocolate glaze:

• 1/2 c. non-dairy chocolate chips
• 1 T. coconut oil
• Optional: organic sprinkles

Instructions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees.
• In a medium bowl, combine flours, baking powder, salt, cinnamon and nutmeg.
• In a small bowl (or just in your liquid measuring cup), combine melted margarine, milk, vanilla and sugar. Mix until sugar has dissolved.
• Add milk mixture to flour mixture and stir until just combined.
• You’ll need a donut pan like this.
• I found mine at Crate + Barrel and bought it on the spot. And then I bought a one-piece bathing suit.
• Pipe or spoon batter into a donut pan that has been lightly greased or sprayed with cooking spray.
• Bake for 11-13 minutes or until donuts are firm to the touch. Allow donuts to cool in pan for approximately 5 minutes before transferring to a cooling rack.
• For glaze, melt chocolate and oil in a shallow bowl, either using a microwave in 30-second increments or a double boiler.
• Dip each donut in chocolate and top with sprinkles, if desired.

Pumpkin Spiced Donuts

Today has been a nice, lazy Sunday so far. I wanted a yummy breakfast with minimal work. These donuts fit the bill perfectly. The recipe comes from Oh She Glows, and yields 12 regular sized donuts. Mom, Matthew, and Mandi tried them, and everyone said they were yummy, too!

You'll need:

• 1/2 tsp apple cider vinegar (white vinegar may work)
• 6 tbsp non-dairy milk
• 1/2 cup fresh or canned pureed pumpkin
• 1/4 cup organic cane sugar (or white)
• 3 tbsp unsweetened applesauce
• 2 tbsp lightly packed brown sugar
• 2 tbsp Earth Balance (or other non-dairy butter substitute), melted
• 2 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp baking soda
• 1 tsp cinnamon + 1/2 tsp ginger, + 1/4 tsp nutmeg (or 1.75 tsp pumpkin pie spice)
• 1/2 tsp kosher salt
• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup whole wheat pastry flour

Cinnamon Sugar:

• 1/4 cup Earth Balance (or other butter sub), melted (approx estimate only)
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

1. Preheat oven to 350F. Grease two mini doughnut pans or two regular sized doughnut pans with Earth Balance (or other butter substitute).
2. In a large bowl, whisk together the vinegar, milk, pumpkin, sugar, applesauce, brown sugar (sift if clumpy), and melted Earth Balance (or other butter sub). 
3. Sift in in the dry ingredients (baking powder, baking soda, spices, salt, and flours). Mix until just combined. I didn’t sift as I was lazy.
4. Using a ‘zip-lock’ baggie or pastry bag, spoon the batter into the bag and then secure it with the zip lock or rubber band. Twist the bag slightly and then cut off a hole at the corner to ‘pipe’ out the batter. Pipe the dough around the circle and gently flatten down with slightly wet fingers to smooth. Repeat.
5. Bake  for 10-12 minutes at 350F or until they gently spring back when touched. Cool in the pan for 10 minutes before carefully using a butter knife to remove. Place on cooling rack for another 10-15 minutes.
6. Cinnamon Sugar: Melt Earth Balance in a small bowl and dip the cooled doughnuts into butter one at a time. Transfer the dipped doughnut into a bag with the cinnamon sugar and shake until coated thoroughly. Doughnuts keep for 2-3 days.

In other, non-food news: meet Squirt!

Two friends of mine found three stray kittens under their shed yesterday. Most shelters were already closed for the day, and not sure what to do with them, they called me. Despite how insanely cute they were, I was unable to keep any. Luckily, though, Matthew took one. He's been looking for a kitten for several weeks now, so this was perfect! Squirt is super cute and sweet; I'll be sad to see him leave today.

Pumpkin Scones

Pumpkins scones from Oh She Glows! My dough was kind of sticky and wet... may or may not have had something to do with the fact that I didn't have spelt flour and just kind of improvised. It wasn't terrible, but I think the consistency would have been better with the flour called for.

Ingredients

• 1 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 cup whole grain spelt flour
• 1 tbsp. baking powder
• 1/2 tsp. sea salt
• 1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
• 1/2 tsp. ground nutmeg
• 1/4 tsp. ground cloves
• 1/4 tsp. ground ginger
• 2-3 tbsp. sugar
• 8 tbsp. Earth Balance butter
• 1/2 cup canned pumpkin
• 3 tbsp. almond milk
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 1 chia/flax egg (1 tbsp. ground chia/flax + 4 tbsp water)
• Turbinado sugar, to garnish
• Vegan Egg Wash:
• 1 tbsp. cornstarch
• 1/2 tbsp. water
• Spiced Glaze:
• 1 cup powdered sugar
• 1.5-2 tbsp. almond milk
• 1/2 tsp. pumpkin pie spice (or 1/4 tsp. cinnamon and a pinch of ginger and nutmeg)

Instructions

1. Preheat the oven to 425F and line a baking sheet with parchment of a non-stick mat.
2. In a small bowl mix the chia/flax egg. Set aside.
3. In a large bowl mix the dry ingredients (flours, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, nutmeg, cloves, ginger).
4. Take the cold Earth Balance butter cut butter into dry ingredients until crumbly.
5. In a medium sized bowl, mix the pumpkin, chia/flax egg, and almond milk.
6. Add wet to dry and mix until a ball forms. I got down and dirty and mixed with my hands!
7. On a flour surface place the ball of dough and kneed a few times with your hands.
8. Shape the dough into a circle and then cut into 8 triangles.
9. Now mix your vegan egg wash by mixing cornstarch and water and heating in microwave for 30 seconds. Stir well.
10. With a pastry brush, brush on the glaze onto each scone.
11. Sprinkle with turbinado sugar generously and bake for 14 minutes.
12. Cool for 10-15 minutes.
13. While cooling, make your spiced glaze by beating 1 cup powdered sugar with milk and spice until smooth.
14. When scones are cool ice the scones and serve with a cup of tea or coffee!

Pumpkin Spice Pancakes

Perhaps my favorite thing about days off is leisurely mornings. There's no alarm going off at 5:30, no hitting the snooze button until the absolute last minute, no rushing around because I hit the snooze button an undisclosed number of times. Instead, I can sleep in and wake up when I feel rested, which was about 8 this morning. My 15-year-old self would be disappointed that I've reached the point where 8AM is sleeping in, but my 24-year-old self savored every extra hour. It was great. 


I've seen loads of recipes and pictures floating around the internet for pumpkin spice pancakes, so when I woke up this morning, I knew what I wanted for breakfast. I've also seen a variety of recipes, so based on the recipes I've seen, this is the one I used.


Pumpkin Spice Pancakes

You'll need:

1¼ cups all-purpose flour 2 tbsp. brown sugar 2 tsp. baking powder ¼ tsp. salt ¾ tsp. ground cinnamon ¼ tsp. ground nutmeg Dash of ground ginger Dash of ground cloves 1 cup non-dairy milk (I used almond) ½ cup pumpkin puree Egg replacer for 1 egg (I used Ener-G, but I think apple sauce would also work well) 2 tbsp. melted butter

In a medium mixing bowl, combine the flour, brown sugar, baking powder, salt and spices and stir with a fork to combine.  In a separate bowl, mix together the milk, pumpkin puree, egg replacer and oil or butter in a liquid measuring cup.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients and whisk together just until combined.

Heat a greased skillet or griddle over medium heat.  Once the skillet is hot, add a 1/3 cup scoop of batter to the pan.  Let cool until bubbles begin to form on the top surface.  Flip and cook the second side until golden brown, a couple minutes more.  Repeat with the rest of the batter, regreasing the pan as needed. Serve with cinnamon sugar, maple syrup, and/or non-dairy whipped cream. These were delicious and perfect for a lazy fall morning. The hardest part was deciding what topping to use: maple syrup or some of the apple syrup I bought at the National Apple Harvest Festival last weekend...  Before I wrap this up and get started on my laundry list of things to get done today, I wanted to thank everyone for all the great support and feedback during the first week of Vegan MoFo!

What Does a Vegan Eat? Breakfast Edition

If I had a dollar for every time someone asked me, "So what do you eat?' I could reach my lifelong dream of retiring by age 25, which is in less than a year. Obviously, I don't eat anything that comes from an animal, and everything plant based. Well, most everything, seaweed and mushrooms not withstanding.

I put together this compilation of some of my favorite breakfasts to show you how delicious a vegan breakfast can be!

Sometimes I eat muffins.

Banana Nut Muffins
Source: 1000 Vegan Recipes

Blueberry Muffins
Source: Fat Free Vegan*

Banana-Chocolate Chip Muffins
Source: Huffington Post*

I like to make pancakes on the weekends.

Basic Pancakes
Source: How it All Vegan

Banana Pancakes
Source: How it All Vegan*

Oatmeal gives me the energy to get through hectic mornings at work.

Overnight oats with apple butter
and cinnamon.

Smoothies are also a great way to get in lots of nutrients!

Go Green Smoothie

Cinnamon buns and blueberry scones are a yummy weekend treat!

Blueberry Scones
Source: Peas and Thank You

Cinnamon Buns
Source: Peas and Thank You*

Stay tuned for the lunch and dinner editions!

*This recipe is available online, and a link to the recipe can be found in the original post.

Welcome to the first day of Vegan MoFo! Vegan MoFo is in its fourth year, and was started over at Post Punk Kitchen by Isa Chandra Moskowitz. The goal is to post about vegan food all month long. A post a day is quite ambitious for me, as you all might suspect, but I'm excited about the challenge. Some blogs follow themes for the month, but I'm not that organized, and let's be honest: 31 posts in a row will be a feat in itself. I will warn you all, however, that my friend Julie has decided to do a 30 Days of Pumpkin thing, and while it's not entirely vegan and I'm not sure if she'll be blogging about it (although I hope she does!), she has kind of gotten me on a pumpkin-pinning obsession (not everything I've pinned is vegan, but I'm eager to attempt to veganize some of these recipes!).

Today I bring you a batch of pumpkin muffins from Vegan with a Vengeance. Kind of coincidental but absolutely appropriate that my first post of Vegan MoFo comes from Isa herself! I made these muffins before I was aware of Julie's mission, but after my Pinterest and some other food blogs exploded with recipes for autumnal recipes. This book is a staple for most vegan kitchens, and it was one of the first books I bought when I went vegan. If you don't have the recipe, you can find an online version here. I reduced the sugar to 1/2 C and subbed 3/4C whole wheat flour for white. I've made this recipe many times before, but I truly prefer it with the slight adjustments I made.

A helpful tip!

Molasses is much easier to manipulate if

you first dip your measuring spoon in oil.

I measured out the canola oil, dipped the spoon,

and then measured out the molasses!

Blueberry Scones

Good morning! Or afternoon, really. I'm happy to report that we survived Hurricane Irene unscathed. It rained for about 15 hours, and the wind is still whipping around outside, but we made it out okay. We didn't lose power, for which I'm incredibly grateful. My basement suffered some flooding, but we were able to keep it under control with a never-ending cycle of rotating towels. I felt like I had a baby or something, waking up around the clock to monitor the situation. And despite my concerns about Dakota peeing inside the house, because she refused to go outside from 8PM until 4AM, her bladder of steel once again amazed me with its incredible strength. To those on the East Coast - I hope you are equally fortunate and stayed/are staying dry, warm, and safe. 

Moving on.

Last winter, I found a fabulous recipe for blueberry scones. One that I thought would make me never look at another scone again. But then I met Peas and Thank You, and it was love at first bite. When I saw a recipe in the book for blueberry scones, I knew I had to give them a try.

Sifting the dry ingredients. I'm a compulsive sifter. I sift everything.

Making the icing!

Ready to go in the oven!

And they were so yummy. So yummy, they may or may not have surpassed my previous recipe in terms of favoritism. Sorry, blueberry scones of last year.

Cinnamon Rolls

Growing up, my brother and I could pick a fight over just about anything - who rode shotgun, who could call the other the most obnoxious name, what we watched on TV. Nothing, and I mean nothing, could incite a riot like who got the middle cinnamon roll. It was as if the middle roll had magical powers, making it softer and sweeter and more cinnamon-y, and hell if we were going to let someone butt-in in the Middle Cinnamon Roll Eater rotation.

Since going vegan, I haven't had a cinnamon roll. And it wasn't until last week that I realized it's been a long, three-and-a-half-year cinnamon roll-less journey. I sought to rectify this situation immediately. The vegan gods were obviously looking out, because I went to Border's on that same day (RIP, you will be missed!) and found Peas and Thank You. I'd actually forgotten I wanted to check out that book, and when I saw it, it was like the heavens opened up, that heavenly glow encircled the book, and the angels sang. And what did I find in the pages of this book?

A recipe for cinnamon rolls. JACKPOT. It was in that instant that I knew Peas and Thank You and I were meant to be. 

It was a little intimidating because I've never baked with yeast before, but I came out unscathed and with a delicious, Omni-Mom approved pan of cinnamon rolls. 

And I didn't have to fight anyone for the middle. 

Scary, rising dough.

All rolled out, a surprisingly easy feat.

Cinnamon filling. The recipe actually calls for blackberries 

in the filling, but I wanted pure, unadulterated cinnamon-y goodness.

My sweet log. No pun intended, and I'm refraining from

making any inappropriate innuendos.

The AMAZING icing, but I won't divulge the secret ingredient.

You'll have to buy the book for that.

But I promise, it's really creamy and yummy without being sickeningly sweet.

Cinna-splosion.

My drizzling skills leave something to be desired...

Admittedly, the centers were a bit doughy, despite baking them for a minute more than the recommended time. The cinnamon and whole wheat used make it difficult to tell when the dough is browned (or maybe I'm just an idiot), so this is kind a "live and learn" experience. Lesson learned: bake for another minute or two. And lucky you, this recipe is available on the Peas and Thank You blog!