At last! My mini-donut pan arrived!

After an excruciating hour long hike with my fellow boot campers last night, I decided to collapse in my kitchen and whip up a batch of lower fat, baked, chocolate glazed, holy-shit-these-are-good-ignore-the-pain donuts.

I played around with a couple recipes that I found online as well as the ones in the magazine. After 3 tries (of which none of the ‘bad’ batches went to waste) – this is the one I liked best.
  
Mini Vegan Donuts 
(Inspired by Yegan Yum Yum)

Yields 24

Dry Ingredients

• 1 Cup Good Quality All Purpose Flour
• 1/2 Cup Evaporated Cane Sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp Baking Powder
• 1/4 tsp Salt
• 1/8 tsp Allspice

  Wet Ingredients

• 1/2 Cup Soy or Rice Milk
• 1/2 tsp Apple Cider Vinegar
• 1/2 tsp Vanilla Extract
• 3 Teaspoons of Ener-G Egg Replacer mixed with 6 Tablespoons of Water
• 4 Tbs Earth Balance

Directions

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees. 
• Dance around and sing loudly to Michael Jackson’s “Man in the Mirror” for a minute or so.
• Grab a medium size bowl, combine dry ingredients with a whisk. 
• Mix Egg Replacer.
• Combine wet ingredients in a medium sauce pan over low heat and mix until earth balance is just melted. Add Egg Replacer. 
• Dance your way from the counter to the table singing Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believin’” using the mixing spatula as a pseudo microphone.
• Scoop out one tablespoon of dough into your ungreased nonstick mini-donut pan. Make sure batter is evenly distributed and smooth. Each donut mold should be a tiny bit more than half full.
• Lick the hell out of your fingers then lick whatever is left in the bowl like it’s your last meal.
• Bake for 12-13 minutes or until a tester comes out clean. They should NOT be anywhere close to brown. 
• Proceed to make your glazes while they bake.
• When they are finished, loosen edges with a butter knife, turn pan over onto a cooling rack and pry the suckers out CAREFULLY.
• “Accidentally” break a couple and shove them in your mouth. No big deal if they happen to fall into the glaze or the sprinkles.
• Dip in glaze, coat them completely, then throw pretty stuff on them. Set on a wire rack until awesome. 
• Finish by shoving a whole one into your mouth and simultaneously singing Queen’s “We are the Champions” as loud as possible while flinging chocolate across the room.

Glaze and pretty stuff!

• 1/2 Cup lump free Powdered Sugar
• 1 Tablespoon Soy or Rice Milk
• 1/4 cup of whatever decorative pretty thing you want to use. I used sprinkles.

Directions

• Whisk milk and powdered sugar together. 
• Dip half of the donut into the glaze being careful not to get it everywhere, or not, then dip glaze-side down into sprinkles. 
• Set on a wire rack until awesome.

For chocolate covered donuts…

•  Melt a bag of good quality chocolate chips over a double boiler. Make sure no water touches it! Or, you could be lazy and microwave it like I did stirring every 30 seconds until smooth.
• Set donuts on rack with something easy to clean under it. I used a plastic rolling mat. Slowly pour over donuts trying not to waste much of the chocolate and swearing like a trucker when you do. The other way is to hand dip them once they have cooled completely. I had no patience for this and ended up crumbling 2 of them into the melted chocolate. Which I then ate.
• Dip in the pretty stuff immediately after.
• Set on a wire rack until awesome.

Once your master mini-donut creations are complete, sit back and enjoy your disaster of a kitchen and try not to feel sick from all the test pieces you consumed. Pawn them off on everyone around you and wish you’d found restraint during the baking process so that you could have enjoyed a completed one with your friends.

Seal in an air tight container and try one the next day once you’ve recovered. Enjoy!

Just when I had come to terms with the fact I got denied when I entered a baking contest, I get THE phone call.

Yours freakin truly (along with 21 other amazing bakers) made the cut for the SF Food Wars mini cupcake challenge! Booyah! All 170 tickets sold out in just an hour. Craziness.

So stoked to start skoolin’ fools!

Cinnaholic will be slangin’ our tasty treats in front of Ike’s Place on Saturday, October 17th at the SF Vegan Bakesale! Cause were awesome. Like a giant bowl of awesomesauce.

Proceeds go to benefit ‘Give Me Shelter Cat Rescue’.

Hollerrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!

Do you remember busting out the sharpies and setting up the little wooden lemonade stand with the tiny paper cups and the ice cold pitcher of lemonade as a kid?

Well lucky you. I don’t.

photo by Lisa Schaffer Photography

I grew up in the ghetto of Concord baby. My neighbor was a registered sex offender and I had to dodge creepy potential kidnappers when I walked home from school. Lemonade stands were an open invitation for any pedophile looking for a good time. Needless to say, I never made lemonade.

For some reason I can justify eating sugar but I can’t bring myself to drink it. This is the reason why I never order lemonade when I go out. Sure, I’ve had the ‘diet’ stuff or the super watered down crappy junk but I’ve never had a perfect, ice cold glass of lemonade without a gang of refined sugar in it. Until last night.

Seriously, BEST LEMONADE I’VE EVER HAD.

I know a lot of people are following the agave trend vs refined sugar these days for diet or diabetes purposes or whatever. If that’s your deal, then this recipe is definitely for you. Personally, I’ve been doing some research on the processing of agave nectar and I’ve found the whole trend to be debatable. It’s said there are benefits when consumed in small amounts, but there are also drawbacks when you overdo it, as with most things. Either way, I prefer the taste of agave to refined sugar that you’d find in most store bought lemonade. I think for my next batch, I’ll try using Stevia.

Ingredients
(Recipe from BabyCakes NYC cookbook)

• 12 lemons
• 4 1/2 cups filtered water
• 3/4 cup agave nectar
• Ice
• Strawberries (optional for garnish)

Directions

• Rinse lemons well and cut in half. 
• Juice the lemons with an electric or a hand juicer.
• In a large pitcher, combine lemon juice, water, agave nectar and stir until fully combined. 
• Pour lemonade over ice and garnish with strawberries, mint or whatever you like!

If you like your lemonade more on the tart side, add a couple extra lemons. If you like it a little sweeter, add more agave. You can always dilute it with more water if it’s a little too overpowering for your taste. I followed the recipe exactly and it turned out perfect.

Now that I live in a better neighborhood, I’m considering quitting my day job and finally opening my own lemonade stand full time. I figure a pair of boy shorts, a bikini top, maybe some roller skates for shits and giggles… I could pull in some major cash, right?

Eh, I think the fact that I’m a hop, skip and a jump away from 30, probably killed that dream. *sigh* Oh well.

If dog food tasted like pumpkin, I’d probably eat it. That’s how much I love it.

This is how it all went down…

Cake

• Replacer for 3 eggs (Ener-G)
• 1 cup white sugar
• 2/3 cup applesauce
• 1 cup shredded carrots
• 1 teaspoon lemon juice
• 3/4 cup all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/2 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 1/4 teaspoon cloves
• confectioners’ sugar for dusting

 Filling

• 1 (8 ounce) package non-dairy cream cheese (Tofutti)
• 4 tablespoons butter substitute (Earth Balance)
• 1 cup confectioners’ sugar
• 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup raisins (optional)
• confectioners’ sugar for dusting

DIRECTIONS 

• Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Line a 10×15 jellyroll pan with parchment paper.
• In a large bowl, beat egg replacer and sugar with an electric mixer on high speed for five minutes. Gradually mix in applesauce and lemon juice. Combine the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg and ginger; stir into the wet mixture. Spread batter evenly into the prepared pan. 

•  Bake for 12 to 15 minutes, or until the center springs back when touched. Turn over onto a clean (lint free) dishtowel that has been dusted generously with confectioners’ sugar. Peel the parchment paper gently away from the cake and toss.

• Roll up cake using towel, and let cool completely (about 20 minutes).

• In a medium bowl, combine non-dairy cream cheese, butter substitute, 1 cup confectioners’ sugar, and vanilla. Beat until smooth. Stir in raisins, if using. Unroll cake when cool, spread with filling, and re-roll. Place roll on a long sheet of waxed paper or plastic wrap, and dust with confectioners’ sugar. Wrap cake, and twist ends like a candy wrapper. Refrigerate overnight. 

• Serve chilled; before slicing, dust with additional confectioners’ sugar. 

You could get all kinds of creative with this heavenly wannabe “HoHo” cake. My personal fav is still the classic pumpkin version though…after October, that is. You can mash the hell out of a banana, use applesauce or pureed or canned pumpkin (plain – not the pie filling with spices) to achieve the moisture part, then throw in nuts, apples, raisins, cocoa powder or whatever else floats your boat. 

I’ve found that for this particular recipe, the cake part tends to be a little wimpy and thin for my taste. I’m a carb queen so the more bread, the better. While there is plenty of filling, I usually double the cake part for a thicker roll. 

One thing that sucks about this recipe is that it does require patience; which I have very little of. If you unroll the cake before it’s cooled completely, it’s gonna crack. Once it cracks and you proceed to fill it, the cream cheese is going to seep through and cause a sticky, messy, disaster all over your kitchen, your hands, your clothes and well… you get the idea. If your roll does crack beyond repair, I suggest slicing the cake and layering the chunks with the filling in between like a trifle.

The thing that’s awesome about this recipe is that it looks super impressive when it’s sliced and plated with a bit of powdered sugar or drizzled lightly with chocolate sauce. The rolls freeze well and you can mix and match whatever flavors suit you. Not to mention, your house smells amazing when it’s in the oven.


2 more weeks until October… time to get my pumpkin on! Woot woot!