Baked Chocolate Cake Donuts with Raspberry Glaze

DONUTS! I wonder how many times I'll write donuts in this post? 

I finally broke down and bought a donut pan. Guys… that pan set me back about 8 buckaroos. Seriously, why did it take me so long? I highly recommend everyone gets a donut pan. SO worth the $8.  

My favorite donut shop ever, Top Pot Doughnuts, has a chocolate cake donut with raspberry glaze that makes me weak in the knees. That was what I wanted to make first, but Evan insisted I make plain ol' plain donuts with powdered sugar and cinnamon. So I did that, just to test 'er out. And when I discovered how freaking easy it is to make baked cake donuts with this pan, I went to the gym… because, donuts. And then, I made chocolate donuts with raspberry glaze. YES. 

I think my counts is at 10… or 11, if you count the 1 use of the alternate spelling "doughnuts." 

I love the chocolate and raspberry combo here. The glaze is sweet but also tangy and fruity, and pairs so well with the super rich chocolatey donut, which is tender and cakey. And also, the glaze is so pretty and pink! I should have made these for Valentine's day, huh?

Well… what are you waiting for? Go get yourself a donut pan! GO! 

Baked Chocolate Cake Donuts with Raspberry Glaze

Batter recipe slightly adapted from Joy the Baker

Makes 10 donuts

Donuts

1 cup flour

1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder

1/2 teaspoon baking soda

1/4 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup light brown sugar, packed

1/4 cup plain Greek yogurt

1/4 cup water

1 large egg

4 tablespoons unsalted butter, melted and cooled to room temperature (runny, but not hot)

1 teaspoon vanilla

Glaze

1.5 cups powdered sugar

1/4 cup raspberries (about 8 berries, fresh or frozen, thawed)

1/4 teaspoon vanilla

Half a lemon

Preheat oven to 325, with rack in top 2/3 of the oven. Coat donut pan with cooking spray. 

Whisk together flour, cocoa powder, baking soda, salt, and sugar. In a separate bowl, whisk together Greek yogurt and water, and stir in egg, butter, and vanilla, until combined. Add wet ingredients to dry, and gently fold with a spatula until combined (making sure to get all the dry ingredients mixed in). The batter will be a bit thick. 

Spoon batter into a ziplock baggie and cut the corner off one end, so you have a hole about the size of a nickel (or spoon into a pastry bag). I find this is the easiest way to fill the donut pan circles. Pipe a thick ring of batter into each donut circle. Bake for about 11-12 minutes, until a toothpick comes out clean, and when you gently touch the top of a donut, it springs back. 

Let donuts cool in pan for a minute or two, then gently turn out onto wire rack. Repeat with remaining batter, depending on how many holes your donut pan has. 

Let cool completely before glazing. 

To make glaze: Add powdered sugar to a bowl, and mash berries through a fine mesh strainer, straining juice into powdered sugar. Add vanilla and a small squeeze of the lemon. Stir until combined. If it's too thick, add more lemon juice. If too thin, add more powdered sugar. 

Gently dip donuts into glaze, being careful when you pull it out to not break donut. Let glaze cool until hard/dry, about 30 minutes to an hour.  

Easy Peasy Split Pea Soup

I have a few things to discuss with you today: jury duty, TV shows, and the easiest soup ever. We’ll start with jury duty.


I had my first jury duty summons this week, and you guys… I loved it! Obviously it can be an inconvenience and burden to take the time off work, and blah blah blah… but man was it fun. I was on a panel, and got to spend a few hours in a court room for jury selection, with the judge, attorneys, and defendant. In the end I didn’t make it in the jury box, but it was so cool to see the process. I was a little bummed I wasn’t selected. Everyone else cheered when they were released. I was sad. I’m gonna go watch Runaway Jury now.


Ok, so… TV shows. Are you watching True Detective yet!? Holy moly. I seriously can’t handle Monday through Saturday, because I’m just dying for the next episode. I love everything about it. The acting is phenomenal (Matt McConahey and Woody Harrelson are amazing), the story line has me hooked, and the I love the look and feel of it. Also, House of Cards, Walking Dead, GIRLS: loving the latest of all three. Although, I must say, and I hate to admit this, but in the latest GIRLS, the beach house episode… Gah. I think I’m sort of a Marne when it comes to party planning and expectations and getting mad when extra people crash the party and I only have enough duck for four people. I get it. But it was pretty gross watching it… I’ll try to change, I will!


Ok, so now, on to this soup. All you have to do is add everything to a pot, boil it, simmer it, eat it. Seriously the easiest ever. Easy peasy… peas. Now, I enjoy the process of browning and caramelizing my base ingredients as much as the next gal, and if you have time and are so inclined, you can do that here. But, if you’re my fiancé (hehe, fiancé…gets me every time) and your night for cooking usually consists of the taco truck or a frozen pizza, this soup is a really good start. Evan is a mighty fine onion chopper, and that’s basically all the skill needed for this recipe.

Oh yeah, and it tastes really good, too.

Easy Peasy Split Pea Soup

Slightly adapted from my sister, who slightly adapted from my mom, who slightly adapted from the recipe on the bag of split peas

1 bag (about 2 cups) dried split peas, rinsed
1 onion, diced
2 cloves garlic, minced
3-4 carrots, diced
6 pieces of thick cut bacon, diced
1 bay leaf
2-3 sprigs thyme
8 cups water
1 teaspoon salt
Pepper

Add all ingredients to a large pot, and bring to a boil. Turn heat to medium-low, cover, and simmer for an hour, or until peas are tender and mushy. Add more water if needed. Serve with parmesan cheese and bread or crackers.

Boozy Honey Cinnamon Shakes

Boozy shakes, boozy shakes, boozy shakes for all! 

Before I talk about boozy shakes, let's talk about my day job. For work, I drink boozy shakes. And I also manage the content team at a B2B tech marketing agency. It's rad and I love it. Sometimes, I go to events and conferences about digital marketing, social engagement, new technology, and interactive media. Sometimes these events have food. And sometimes they have really, really good food. And drinks. I go for the food and drinks, I stay for the knowledge, ya know? 

This week I attended IN-NW 2014, which happened to be one of the best events I've attended, knowledge-wise and food-wise. And, what a stacked agenda! It basically looked like this:

• Top Pot Donuts and coffee
• People talking on stage
• Marination Mobile food truck
• People talking on stage 
• Snoqualmie Ice Cream Whiskey Milkshake happy hour
• Networking

WHISKEY MILKSHAKE HAPPY HOUR. Sign this girl up! I went through line twice. Or maybe three times, no one was counting. Oh…they were?

Whiskey and ice cream together is always a good idea. It's an even better idea when you're using amazing ice cream like Snoqualmie, which is local for us Pacific Northwest folks. They're family run, and use local ingredients and sustainable practices for their small-batch ice cream, which is really creamy amazing, and comes in a ton of flavors. I really only stopped by the milkshake table three times so that I could ask the Snoqualmie gals how to make these boozy beauties… and then of course, I had to sample each time, just to make sure. 

Honey, cinnamon, whiskey, and ice cream… come to mama. 

Boozy Honey Cinnamon Shakes

Inspired by Snoqualmie Ice Cream

Snoqualmie makes these shakes with their Honey Cinnamon Frozen Custard. Which I totally recommend. But, if you can't get your hands on it, then you can definitely recreate the awesomeness with vanilla ice cream. If you can find the Honey Cinnamon custard, just leave out the honey and cinnamon. 

1 pint (2 cups) vanilla ice cream

2 tablespoons honey

1 teaspoon cinnamon

1 ounce whiskey

Extra honey & cinnamon for glass rim

Add all ingredients to blender or milkshake machine, and blend until thick and creamy. Add more whiskey as desired, party animal! Add about a tablespoon of honey and a pinch of cinnamon to a plate, and mix together. Dip rim of glass in the honey/cinnamon mixture until coated, then pour in the milkshake. Drizzle remaining honey from the plate over top of shake. 

Note: This post is not sponsored by or affiliated with Snoqualmie Ice Cream in any way and all opinions are my own, I just really like their ice cream! 

Gluten Free Chocolate Pancakes

What are your thoughts on breakfast in bed? 

I think sounds nice, in theory… but really, I sort of hate it. Eating in bed grosses me out. Crumbs and food smells in the bed… no gracias. But, I am all for a quick chocolaty breakfast for Valentine's Day… just, served in the dining room. PS. Who am I kidding… we totally only eat on the couch in front of the tv. 

These pancakes are super simple to whip up, and happen to be gluten free, sugar free (unless you add chocolate chips and maple syrup like I do), and, minus the chocolate chips and syrup, and maybe a pinch of salt, contain only four simple ingredients. Almond butter, bananas, eggs, and cocoa powder. That's it, my friends. 

I know it seems weird to not add any flour, but it just works! And if these weren't already simple enough, I mix the batter up in the blender, which makes for easy, even pouring, and quick clean up. I'm pretty sure that Evan could even make these pancakes (hint, hint)! 

Gluten Free Chocolate Pancakes

Makes about 16 silver dollar pancakes

The riper your bananas, the more banana flavor you'll get. If you're into that, go super ripe. I prefer less ripe, to let the chocolate shine through more. You can also swap out the almond butter for peanut butter! The ratios here are really simple to remember, and make it easy to halve or double the recipe. The one drawback to these is that they're a little difficult to flip. The smaller the pancake and the less you cook at a time, the better.

2 bananas

2 eggs

2 heaping tablespoons almond butter

2 tablespoons cocoa powder 

Pinch salt

Chocolate chips

Cooking spray or butter

Maple syrup, for serving

Blend bananas, eggs, almond butter, cocoa powder, and salt until smooth (will just take a few seconds, depending on the power of your blender). Heat a skillet or griddle over medium heat, and spray or butter. Pour a small amount of batter into the skillet (silver dollar size) and add 2-3 chocolate chips/ pancake. When the top starts to bubble (generally takes less than a minute), gently flip, and cook another 30-60 seconds. Repeat with remaining ingredients, spraying/buttering skillet between each batch. Serve warm with maple syrup! 

Friday, Friday

TGIF! I don’t have a new recipe for you today, so instead you get to hear some ramblings about my life, plus, to keep you interested, some of my recent phone pics (ferry! donuts! parades! cat!) and a few fun recipes from around the interwebz.


First off, I’ve basically been sick for a month and a half, and have had zero appetite and zero energy to cook. At Christmas I got the flu. Which turned to bronchitis. Which became a sinus infection. Which led to a double ear infection. Then sometime around middle-end of January I started to feel better for like a week…then I picked up a new cold/flu virus. And now I’ve been sick for the last 2 weeks again. I should probably start living in a plastic bubble. But, I’m starting to feel better, and have some good ideas for Valentine’s Day treats for you!

Speaking of Valentine’s Day… as I’ve mentioned before, I love everything about it. Actually, not everything… I hate red velvet! There, said it. Just… why eat mild-chocolate flavored food-coloring? I’d rather have full-on chocolate. Take your red velvet cakes, pancakes, cupcakes, cookies, and cocktails. I don’t want ‘em. I do want these V-Day goodies though:

• Italian Almond Valentine Cake from My Name is Yeh. I love Molly’s blog, everything she says and makes is the cutest, especially her cakes.
• Chocolate Hazelnut Linzer Hearts from Smitten Kitchen. Like I said, bring on the chocolate! I have a soft-spot for heart shaped cookies this time of year.
• Chocolate Covered Strawberry Hi-Hat Cupcakes from Pineapple & Coconut. WHAT! These cupcakes are rad.

Let’s talk about the Super Bowl. Guys… I might as well change my blog name to Loves Food, Loves the Legion of Boom. Because seriously, I’m obsessed. I’m all Seahawks, all the time. I keep reading that everyone who isn’t a Hawks fan/Pacific Northwest resident/ Seattleite thought the game was boring. WHAT!?! OMG. IT was the most amazing game ever! It’s all we can talk about here. And the parade earlier this week (see the sea of 12s below) was incredible! We all came together like this big giant family, the sense of camaraderie is amazing here right now. BEASTMODE.

 

Also, a quick related rant. I’m usually a big NYT fan, but this article…sucks. It’s clearly written by someone who knows nothing about Seattle. First off, it’s the Seattle Freeze, not the Seattle Chill. And this sentence is the most inaccurate thing I’ve ever read: “Drivers here often smile and wave at one another for no obvious reason”… um, hardly! We may be polite, but that doesn’t mean friendly… it’s called the Seattle Freeze for a reason! And finally, no one refers to Seattle as “Oakland of the North.” That has never happened. Ok, rant over.
 

Now that I’m getting my appetite back, there are lots of things I want to eat. Particularly these things:

• Fry Bread Breakfast Tacos from The Candid Appetite. So, there’s this late-night fry bread taco truck here, and one time, after months of lusting, I finally got one… and after only a few bites, a drunk stranger straight up grabbed the taco out of my friend’s hand and ran away. Taco jacked!
• Harissa Roasted Carrots with Yogurt, Lemon, & Mint from Flourishing Foodie. I love everything about this recipe, from the flavor combo to the simplicity. Roasted vegetables with warm spices are perfect for cold weather.
• Maple Scones with Candied Bacon from Love + Cupcakes. No words needed… just, give to me.

See you guys & gals soon with all things chocolaty and lovey and hearts and cupids!