Dairy Free Baked Pumpkin Doughnuts

You made it through Thanksgiving!!  Congrats!  Before you jump into the mountain of leftovers in the refrigerator you'll want something for breakfast. 

My suggestion... PUMPKIN DOUGHNUTS! These are easy to make, delicious, and believe it or not much lighter than having a piece of pie for breakfast (not that you would).

I made two trays of and froze the rest of the batter for future doughnuts.

Dairy Free Baked Pumpkin Doughnuts:
(adapted from King Arthur Flour)

1/2 cup vegetable oil
3 large eggs
1 1/2 cups granulated sugar
1 1/2 cups canned pumpkin
3 teaspoons pumpkin pie spice
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 3/4 cups + 2 tablespoons all-purpose flour
 
Coating Options:
3 tablespoons cinnamon-sugar
Coconut


Directions:


Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease two standard doughnut pans. If you don't have doughnut pans, use a standard muffin tin; they just won't be doughnuts.

Beat together the oil, eggs, sugar, pumpkin, spices, salt, and baking powder until smooth.

Add the flour, stirring just until smooth.

Fill the the doughnut pans about 3/4 full.  I use about 2 1/2 scoops per doughnut.

Bake the doughnuts for 15 to 18 minutes, or until a cake tester inserted into the center of one comes out clean.

Remove the doughnuts from the oven, and after about 5 minutes, loosen their edges, and transfer them to a rack to cool.

I made my doughnuts two different ways.  One batch I tossed in cinnamon sugar. 

The other batch I used coconut.  Believe it or not, it was delicious.  All I did for the coconut doughnuts was put some coconut flakes on top of the doughnut batter once it was in the pan.  I stirred it around a little bit to make sure the coconut flakes would stick to the doughnuts.

Coconut Macaroons

We have just finished up the spring holiday season.  Passover and Easter were the same weekend this year and everywhere I looked there were coconut desserts galore, especially coconut macaroons.  I decided that this, and the fact that I had every ingredient needed to make these little desserts in my panty, was a sign... so I whipped up a batch.

I looked at quite a few macaroon recipes and they were all pretty similar.  I decided on this version from Ina Garten because she used a can of sweetened condensed milk, which is awesome. I think I'm going to add these into my dessert rotation.  They were really easy to make and the ingredient list is small.

Note:  If you are looking to make these for Passover I can't attest to the Kosherness (is that a word?) of them.

 

Coconut Macaroons:
(Ina Garten)

Ingredients:
14 ounces sweetened shredded coconut

14 ounces sweetened condensed milk

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
2 extra-large egg whites, at room temperature
1/4 teaspoon kosher salt

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

Combine the coconut, condensed milk, and vanilla in a large bowl. Whip the egg whites and salt on high speed in the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the whisk attachment until they make medium-firm peaks. Carefully fold the egg whites into the coconut mixture.

Drop the batter onto sheet pans lined with parchment paper using either a 1 3/4-inch diameter ice cream scoop, or 2 teaspoons.

 

Bake for 25 to 30 minutes, until golden brown. Cool and serve.

Thumbprint Cookies

Thumbprint cookies are perfect for a holiday cookie exchange.  They're small and something a little different.

Thumbprint Cookies:
(adapted from Ina Garten)

Ingredients:
1 cup of butter (2 sticks or 8 ounces), room temperature
1/2 cup of sugar
2 eggs, room temperature
1 teaspoon of vanilla extract
Pinch of salt
2 cups of flour
1 cup of chopped nuts or coconut (optional)
3/4 cup of blackberry or strawberry jam
Parchment paper

Directions:

Cream the butter and sugar on high speed for about 3 minutes.

Separate the eggs. Add the yolks and vanilla extract to the butter mixture. If using nuts place the egg whites in a shallow dish on the side and whisk them until bubbly and frothy (the egg whites will be used to keep the nuts on the cookies).

Add the flour and salt. Mix until just combined. Place the dough in the fridge for 30 minutes and preheat the oven to 350F.


Roll the dough into balls about 1 inch in diameter. Place the balls on parchment lined cookie sheets.

Press down with your thumb to make a small well in the center of the cookie. Do not press too hard or the cookie will fall apart. Fill with 1/2 teaspoon of jam.

Bake for 12-15 minutes or until slightly firm. Allow to cool for a few minutes on the cookie sheet to firm up before moving them to a wire rack to finish cooling.

I rolled some of the cookies in coconut before I put them in the oven.  Just give them a little bit of an egg wash before you put the coconut on them so it sticks.

Magic Cookie Bars

Every family has a version of this dessert.  It's a great dessert to make if you have to throw something together at the last minute or just want to use what you have in the pantry.  I've seen it made with peanut butter chips, white chocolate, and and a million other things.

I made these for one of my coworker's 5 year working anniversary and they were a big hit.  They were so rich that we were able to eat on them for a couple of days.

Magic Cookie Bars:

Ingredients:

1 1/2 cup graham cracker crumbs
1 stick salted butter, melted
1/2 cup chopped pecans
1 cup butterscotch chips
1 cup chocolate chips
1 cup shredded coconut
1 14-oz. can sweetened condensed milk

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.

Combine the graham cracker crumbs and melted butter in a bowl. Press into the bottom of a 9×13-inch baking dish.

Sprinkle pecans, coconut flakes, butterscotch chips and chocolate chips on top in layers.

Pour can of sweetened condensed milk over mixture.

Bake for 30 minutes. Let cool and cut into bars.

These are so rich!  (but so good)

Coconut Cupcakes

Easter was this past weekend.  My family doesn't usually throw a big Easter dinner.  We're more of the Thanksgiving/Christmas people.  Anyways... my aunt e-mailed me to see if I would be willing to bring desserts for the dinner.  Since I love desserts and I love making them I said sure!

I got the idea for the Coconut-Key Lime cupcakes from nestie Marafaye.

Coconut Cupcakes

by Ina Garten; The Barefoot Contessa
Makes 18-20 cupcakes

Ingredients:
3/4 pound (3 sticks) unsalted butter, room temperature
2 cups sugar
5 extra-large eggs at room temperature
1 1/2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
1 1/2 teaspoons pure almond extract
3 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon kosher salt
1 cup buttermilk
14 ounces sweetened, shredded coconut

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 325 degrees F.

In the bowl of an electric mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, cream the butter and sugar on high speed until light and fluffy, about 5 minutes. With the mixer on low speed, add the eggs, 1 at a time, scraping down the bowl after each addition. Add the vanilla and almond extracts and mix well.

In a separate bowl, sift together the flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. In 3 parts, alternately add the dry ingredients and the buttermilk to the batter, beginning and ending with the dry. Mix until just combined. Fold in 7 ounces of coconut.

Line a muffin pan with paper liners. Fill each liner to the top with batter. Bake for 25 to 35 minutes, until the tops are brown and a toothpick comes out clean. Allow to cool in the pan for 15 minutes. Remove to a baking rack and cool completely.

Key Lime Buttercream Frosting:(Southern Living)

1/2 cup butter, softened
1 1/2 teaspoons of Key Lime zest
1 teaspoon vanilla
3 Tbsp lime juice
1 (16-oz) box powdered sugar
1-2 tablespoon milk

Directions:

In a large bowl (or in a mixer), combine butter, vanilla, and lime zest. Beat with an electric mixer until light and fluffy.

Add powdered sugar alternately with Key lime juice, 1 Tbsp. at a time, and 1 Tbsp. milk, beating at low speed until blended and smooth after each addition. Beat in up to 1 Tbsp. additional milk for desired consistency.

German Chocolate Cake Truffles

I've got the baking itch. I decided to make "cake truffles" tonight. I've never made them before and I hear people talk about them all the time so I decided to give them a try.  I got the idea for them from Bakerella.  The ones she makes are seriously cute, she even makes them into mini pops.  Mine were not as amazing.


What you need:
1 box of cake mix- any flavor you want.  Tonight I went with a marble cake.
1 can of store bought frosting.  I used a coconut pecan one tonight.

Baking chocolate.  You can use white or milk.

 

Make the cake mix as directed.  When the cake comes out of the oven let it cool and then crumble it up.  Mix the icing with the crumbled cake.  Roll the cake and icing mixture into small balls, about the size of a quarter.  Refrigerate and let the cake cool (several hours).

 
After the cake balls cool, melt the chocolate over a double boiler or in the microwave.  Dip the balls in the chocolate and place them on a sheet of wax paper to cool.
 
Enjoy!!

OK, so here's the deal.  I was seriously impatient tonight and didn't let things cool as I should have.  My cute little cake balls look more like boulders than spheres.  While I was melting my chocolate some of the steam got in there and my chocolate got all wonky.  Oh well.  They may look ugly but they still taste pretty good.

White Chocolate Bark

White Chocolate Bark:

Ingredients:

4-5 boxes of white bakers chocolate (6 squares per box)

2 cups of sweetened coconut

2 cups of chopped macadamia nuts

In a double boiler melt the chocolate.  Stir occasionally.

In a dry pan toast the coconut and the nuts.

Pour melted chocolate onto pan sprayed with some non-stick cooking spray.  Sprinkle coconut and nuts on top of chocolate.  Refridgerate until hard.  Break into pieces.

It was really good.  I totally guessed when I was picking up things and it worked!  I only got two boxes of chocolate and it didn't make enough to cover the pan.  This is easy enough that if you needed to make a different amount you could.