It’s official. I’m never buying another donut from the store again. When I discovered on the internet that you could make donuts out of deep-fried canned biscuits, I was a little skeptical. So skeptical that I had to give it a try.

Well, it works. It really works! And they are so delicious!

Not only are these donuts super easy, but they look beautiful all lined up on a plate and ready for grabbing…

We’re already brainstorming ideas for a donut-topping party for our son’s second birthday next month. Everyone gets a plain donut, and chooses their coating (plain glaze, chocolate ganache, lemon cream, etc.), and then they decorate it (sprinkles, coconut, powdered sugar, etc.). I’m sure someone else has thought of this, but this has opened up a whole new world for us.

If you’re like me you might be wondering one very important thing:  DOES IT ACTUALLY TASTE AND FEEL LIKE A DONUT OR IS IT JUST A FRIED BISCUIT?

The answer is:  It truly does look, taste, and feel like a donut. They are slightly crispy on the outside with chewy centers. The taste kind of reminds me of a funnel cake (woo hooo). Of course, that will be altered by what you top it with.

The blueberry glaze really makes them pop visually, but flavor-wise, I think chocolate would be amazing on these. Or as my wife suggested, chocolate with sea salt caramel drizzled on top. She just understands me that way.

Here are some tips that I HIGHLY RECOMMEND FOLLOWING:

1. A shot glass or, um, one of those small, plastic, communion cups they give you at church are perfect for cutting the hole (I don’t know they ended up in my house. I promise!).
2. Use your donut hole to test the oil. THIS IS IMPORTANT. My oil was too hot when I put the first few in and they were burnt to a crisp almost instantly. I’m talking black and crunchy. I almost gave up right then and there. So, if the donut hole starts turning brown as soon as it hits the oil, you’re oil is too hot. You really want these to cook slowly in the oil so the inside has enough time to cook completely while you work towards getting the perfect golden doneness on the outside.
3. Allow the donuts to cool to room temperature before glazing them. This will help the glaze set faster. I also feel like it helps the donut texture to form. Seriously. I tried one when it was warm and it didn’t have quite enough chew in it.

Other than those few tips, this is pretty fool proof! Oh and by the way…

HAPPY NATIONAL DONUT DAY.

You could get a free donut somewhere, or you could just make a batch of these at home. I recommend these.

Ingredients

• 1 can Pillsbury™ Grands!™ Flaky Layers
• 1/2 cup blueberries
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• 2 1/2 cups powdered sugar
• 2 tablespoons half and half
• 1 tsp pure vanilla extract
• 3 cups vegetable oil

Directions

Heat oil in a large pan with high sides.

Separate biscuits and cut a hole in the center of each one using your instrument of choice.

Test the oil with one of the donut holes. If it starts to turn brown immediately, the oil is too hot. When oil is the right temperature, place 2-3 donuts in the pan. Allow one side to cook until golden brown and then carefully flip over with tongs. When other side is finished, remove donuts and place on a wire rack to cool.

Meanwhile, place blueberries and sugar in a small saucepan on medium heat. Mash blueberries with a fork and combine thoroughly with the sugar. Allow to boil for 1-2 minutes then turn off the heat and allow to cool.

In a bowl that is larger than your donut, whisk 2-3 tablespoons of the blueberry mixture with powdered sugar, milk and vanilla. Adjust wet or dry ingredients if necessary to get the right consistency in your glaze.

When donuts have cooled, dip each donut quickly into the glaze and then transfer back to wire racks or a serving dish. You can eat them now, or allow the glaze to firm up a little.

If you want to make this even easier, feel free to skip the blueberries. In fact, you could probably skip the entire glaze and just roll them in sugar. I don’t think you can go wrong with these!

Are you as shocked as I am that canned biscuits can be used to make delicious donuts? Getting ideas for what toppings you’d want to try? I’d love to hear from you in the comment section below!

Strawberries have been looking irresistibly delicious lately, so I’m gettin’ em while they’re hot (figuratively speaking). I saw a photo of these inside out chocolate covered strawberries – I think it was THIS ONE – and I was instantly in love.

Dark chocolate stuffed inside a big juicy strawberry? Yes please!

A moment of truth. They barely survived not being eaten before I could photograph them. Within about 10 minutes after the photos, THEY WERE GONE.

I told my mom about them, and she asked how long they would keep. All I could say was, “they didn’t last long enough for me to find out.”

If I had to guess, I would say they should probably be eaten within a day or two (keep them in the refrigerator of course).

Also, the chocolate does get hard. Really hard. We didn’t mind it, but if you want more of a soft chocolate experience, you can follow Lily’s tip to add a tablespoon of heavy cream to the melted chocolate. Just make sure you add it before you start melting the chocolate.

Adding any liquid after you start melting chocolate will cause your chocolate to seize. That means it will become a big gritty ball of worthlessness that you will want to throw through a window and then smash the bowl that it was made in, throw away all your kitchen stuff, burn down the house, and never cook again. I’m not speaking from personal experience or anything. 

Okay, I may have tried adding some vanilla to the chocolate the first time I tried this. Trust me, keep moisture away from that chocolate. It is advised to not even use a wooden spoon (that could be harboring moisture).

Ingredients

• 1 lb of the biggest strawberries you can find
• 12 oz bag of semi-sweet chocolate chips

Directions

Fill a saucepan with water to come up the sides about 1.5 inches. Place on the stove and place a glass or stainless steel bowl over the pan. Place chocolate chips in the glass bowl, and heat the water on low heat.

Stir the chocolate chips until fully melted. Once done, remove from heat and allow to cool for about 8 minutes.

While chocolate is cooling prepare the strawberries. Scoop out center of strawberry. I use a small knife to cut the stem and leaves off and then I cut into the strawberry from the top in a circular direction. I also cut a small tip off the bottom of the strawberry so that they will stand up on their own.

Place chocolate in a large ziploc bag, and seal it closed. Cut a small corner off the bottom of the bag. Squeeze chocolate through the opening to fill strawberries. I do it as if I’m filling a cone with ice cream to give it that slightly twisted look.

Chill strawberries for about 10 minutes. Enjoy!

Need a quick dessert for your next gathering? Look no further than this strawberry trifle with donuts. Yes. Donuts.

I’ve been craving donuts a lot lately, so I guess that would be the inspiration. So sorry for those of you who are counting calories. You might want to stick with Roasted Baby Artichokes. But if you are feeling a little on the wild side, try this instead!

Did I mention that it presents beautifully? It took me around 5 minutes to assemble once all the prep work was done, and then I stood back and exclaimed, “MY MAGNUM OPUS! The completion of my life’s work.”

Alright, so it’s just a strawberry trifle with donuts. The point is, it’s simple (and satisfying) and looks like you spent a long time on it.

I used instant pudding for the sake of ease, but it would be even better with homemade pudding (maybe I’ll offer up a recipe for that soon), or even just the “cook & serve” pudding from the grocery store.

Ingredients

• 15 mini donuts – the plain kind found in the bakery section of the grocery store
• 1 lb strawberries, leaves trimmed off and cut in half length-wise (save one whole one for the top)
• 1 pint heavy whipping cream
• 1 tbs pure vanilla extract
• 1/2 cup powdered sugar
• 2 3.4 oz boxes instant vanilla or french vanilla pudding
• 4 cups milk

Directions

Prepare pudding as directed on box. Set aside.

Prepare whipped cream. In a large bowl, add heavy whipping cream, powdered sugar, and vanilla. With a hand mixer, whisk on high speed. If you haven’t done this before, start with your mixer on the lowest setting and gradually work your way up so you don’t end up with whipped cream everywhere. Whisk until heavy cream thickens. You want it soft and fluffy. If you over mix it, it will get too thick. Don’t over mix!

Line the perimeter of trifle dish with about 8 donuts (this might vary depending on the size of your trifle and the donuts). Crumble 3 donuts to fill the center. Carefully pour pudding on the center (on top of the crushed donuts). Spread around with a spatula to even it out.

Place a little more than half of the whipped cream over the pudding and spread around to even it out. Line the perimeter of the trifle with the strawberry halves stem-side down. Place remaining strawberries in the center. Crumble 3 more donuts over the center to cover the strawberries.

Place remaining whipped cream on top and spread to even it out. Top trifle with remaining donut and one strawberry.

Serves 8-12

Got any ideas for another donut trifle? I’m imagining a Boston Cream one with lots of custard and dark chocolate. Mmmmm.

Just the words peaches and cream are enough to make my mouth water.

This recipe was a total experiment. I knew I couldn’t go wrong with cooked peaches and vanilla ice cream, but putting it over a biscuit?

This isn’t just any biscuit though. I’ve pumped it up with oats, pecans, and cinnamon. Arnold Schwarzenegger would be proud, although I can’t picture him eating a biscuit.

The result is a hearty and dense biscuit that I think makes a perfect companion for the peaches and cream. It holds together nicely where as a fluffier biscuit might fall apart and get too soggy.

Overall, I’m happy with the way these came out, but they definitely have to be eaten right away. We refrigerated some of the biscuits and ate them the next day, and the quality had declined substantially. They were a little too dry and pasty. Bummer.

If you’d rather skip them, then just grab a bowl, scoop some ice cream in it, and put the peaches on top, and you will still have an amazing dessert that is so easy to make.

Ingredients

• 2 cups all purpose baking mix (like Bisquick)
• 3/4 cups pecans, finely chopped
• 1/2 cup instant oats
• 2 tsp cinnamon, half will be used for the biscuits and the other half for the peaches
• 2/3 cups milk
• 8 overly ripened peaches, cut into 1″ pieces and pit removed
• 2 tbs butter
• 1 tbs brown sugar
• Vanilla ice cream

Directions

Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.

In a large bowl, combine baking mix, pecans, oats, and 1 teaspoon of cinnamon. Stir in milk until dough forms. Sprinkle a little of the baking mix on the counter and roll the dough in it to cover. Knead 10 times, and then roll to 1/2 thickness. I used a 2 1/2″ biscuit cutter to cut 16 biscuits.

Bake on an ungreased cookie sheet for 8 minutes. While the biscuits are cooking place peaches, butter, remaining cinnamon, and brown sugar into a medium pan. Cook on medium heat until peaches start to bubble. Reduce heat to a simmer and continue cooking another 3-5 minutes.

Place warm biscuit in a bowl and top with a scoop of ice cream followed by the cooked peaches.

Have you been inspired to cook some fruit and put it on ice cream? Imagine how easy this would be for a dinner gathering! I bet it would be great with apples too…

After my failed attempt at trying to make a cherry cream cheese palmier last night, I decided I needed to make another dessert. And it needed to be good. Really good.

I found this recipe for shoofly pie from RecipeCurio.com. It came from an old newspaper clipping, so I figured it had to be good. Shoofly pie is a traditional Pennsylvania Dutch dessert that has molasses and a crumb topping. According to the newspaper clipping, it was originally made with a pretzel crust, but all the other recipes I have seen use a basic pie crust.  

Can I just say that I love pretzels? I was not about to pass up an opportunity to redeem myself from that horrid palmier experience while getting to use pretzels in a dessert.

The recipe came out great. I did make one teensy-weensy huge mistake though. I doubled the butter for the crust. Oops. It was delicious, and I’m not going to apologize for it. Honestly though, I couldn’t even tell, and I would probably do it again.

The crumb topping was a bit excessive, so that could have been scaled back a little, but it was still good. The top of the crust does stay pretty crumbly, but the pie cuts well, and is easy to serve. I will note, though, that you will most likely have crumbs everywhere. That was my experience, but I do have two kids. Go figure.

*Recipe taken from here.

Ingredients

• 1 1/4 cups fine pretzel crumbs
• 1/4 cup granulated sugar
• 1/2 cup softened butter or margarine (I used an additional 1/4 cup for the crust)
• 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1/2 cup light brown sugar, firmly packed
• 2/3 cup boiling water
• 1/2 tsp baking soda
• 1/2 cup unsulphured molasses
• 1 egg, beaten

Directions

Combine pretzel crumbs and granulated sugar with one-fourth cup of the butter that has been softened, until well blended. Press on bottom and sides of greased 9-inch pie plate.

Blend flour and brown sugar; cut in remaining butter until mixture resembles corn meal. Pour water over baking soda; beat in molasses; then the egg. Reserve three-fourths cup of flour mixture; into remainder of flour mixture stir molasses mixture until just blended. Do not beat. Pour into pie crust; sprinkle with reserved flour mixture.

Immediately bake in preheated 375-degree oven 25 to 30 minutes, or until done. Serve warm or cooled with ice cream, if desired.

Do you have any recipes from an old newspaper clipping? Have you had a recent failure in the kitchen? I’d love to hear all about it in the comment section below!

Yesterday was a dreamy sort of day. After church, we came home and had a simple lunch, and then Katie and I planned our week of meals together. I ended up running to the grocery store so she could stay home with the kids while they napped.

When I got back, I decided to make some crème brûlée. Crème brûlée has been one of my favorite desserts for years. It is also known as “burnt cream,” most likely because of it’s hard caramelized top. It is really simple to make, and I haven’t met anyone who doesn’t like it, so it’s perfect for serving to guests.

After it was finished, I brought it out to our backyard to photograph. I had it propped up on a serving tray that was placed on our patio table, and there was something magical about the surrounding environment. The kids were playing in the yard, Katie was journaling at the table, and there was my crème brûlée – just hanging out with the family on a sunny Sunday afternoon. After the photos were done, we devoured them. I just love the crunchy topping and the rich custard underneath.

Ingredients

• 1 egg
• 4 egg yolks
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon sugar for each serving
• 3 cups heavy cream
• 4 teaspoons pure vanilla extract

Directions

Preheat oven to 325 degrees F. In a large bowl, whisk together the eggs and sugar until combined. Meanwhile, heat the cream in a small pot on medium heat until it is hot to the touch, but not boiling. Stir in the vanilla, and cook for another minute.

Remove pot from heat and pour slowly into egg mixture while whisking everything together.

Pour into ramekins until almost full. Place ramekins into a large baking pan.

Rinse out the pot that was used for the cream and fill with hot water. Bring to a boil and then slowly pour the water into the pan with the ramekins until the water comes halfway up the sides of the ramekins.

Bake 35-40 minutes or until the custards are set when gently shaken. Remove custards from baking pan and cool to room temperature.

Sprinkle sugar on each serving and heat with a kitchen blowtorch until the sugar is caramelized evenly. Alternatively, you may place custards on the top shelf of an oven and broil for 3 minutes or until sugar is bubbling and brown, but not burning.

Serve immediately after caramelizing.

Serves 6

I know there are a zillion different types of cookies out there, and chocolate chip is probably the most boring of them all, but they are a classic and my daughter loves making them. After finding this recipe from Betty Crocker, I can honestly say it is my favorite chocolate chip cookie ever, and pretty much everything I expect from a chocolate chip cookie.

Sometimes our extended family will do fun games like eating a bite of 5 different apples and voting on our favorite, or everyone making chocolate chip cookies and tasting each kind to see what is best.

Needless to say, this recipe won the cookie contest! Of course, I can’t take credit for it. All thanks to Miss Crocker (who apparently was never a real person).

Ingredients

A couple tips that will ensure a perfect cookie:

1. Follow the recipe exactly.
2. Make sure your eggs and butter are room temperature before beginning.
3. Use a good vanilla (Madagascar Bourbon Vanilla is my favorite and I’m convinced it takes every recipe to a new level of greatness).
4. Transfer to a cooling rack immediately to keep the cookie soft and chewy.
5. Make sure to have a glass of milk close by!

I have made these several times and they always come out delicious. WARNING:  They are addicting!