I was craving Raised Doughnuts this week- those light fluffy doughnuts with a chocolate glaze just like the ones we used to buy at our local bakery, Golden Bakery. It has been closed for many years now, but I can still remember the wonderful smell when you walked into the bakery. I have been trying to re-create the chocolate glazed doughnuts for years and I think this recipe is as close as I am going to come to it. The doughnuts are light and airy and the glaze has just enough chocolate in it.
The humid hot days of August are the perfect reason to make some luscious home-made ice cream. The combination of home-made vanilla ice cream and home-made blackberry raspberry jam creates an amazing flavour. This idea for Blackberry Raspberry Ice Cream sprang from an abundance of blackberries this year in our area. I have never seen the blackberries this huge and so many of them. Plus I had a craving for home-made ice cream so the stars had aligned in my kitchen.
Summer is coming! Hopefully…summer is coming. We finally had a beautiful warm sunny Saturday and that had me thinking about summer desserts and ice cream. Now you can have a bowl of good quality vanilla ice cream (my favourite) but if you add a topping, now we are talking dessert. One of the most delicious toppings to make is Pineapple in Caramel Sauce.
It is maple syrup season which can be otherwise known as Spring! Maple syrup has such a distinct flavour and although everyone drizzles it over pancakes I love to bake with it. This version of butter tarts uses both maple syrup and brown sugar without making the filling too sweet. Butter Tarts are a very heavenly dessert and these Maple Butter Tarts would make a very delicious dessert for your Easter dinner.
This fudge recipe is simply the easiest creamiest fudge recipe out there. I have been making this recipe for years now after receiving the recipe from a co-worker about 10 years ago. What makes this Easy Creamy Fudge recipe almost fool-proof is that you make it in the microwave and there is no candy thermometer required! After trying multiple brown-sugar fudge recipes I still come back to this one. Now some folks will see the white chocolate in the list of ingredients and think it won’t taste like a brown-sugar fudge, but they would be wrong.
Even though Spring is supposedly coming it sure is hard to believe when there is still a foot of snow on the ground outside. I have been craving fresh berries and the only ones available are California grown- but a craving is a craving so I caved and bought them. But disappointment soon followed – every one of those berries that looked so beautiful red and juicy were spongy white in the middle. What’s a girl to do with a container full of disappointment? She takes them and pops them in the oven and voila – Roasted Strawberries. What a transformation! From tasteless to sweet and juicy in just 20 minutes. Then take it up a notch and add vanilla ice cream and you have a wonderful dessert or midnight snack.
So it is a snowy Saturday in April- that’s right it is still SNOWING here!! Mother Nature has abandoned us and gone south for sure. Seeing as though it is a snowy mucky day I might as well be baking as what else is there to do besides laundry? I was in the mood for something a little sweet but not too over the top as I had already eaten too many candy coated Easter eggs last weekend. Baked Glazed Doughnuts sound like a treat that you shouldn’t have to feel the least bit guilty about…after all aren’t doughnuts supposed to be fried? Well these confections look like doughnuts but are a little more cake-like but still have all of the satisfying taste of a fried doughnut.
If you are in need of a great snack or a last minute home-made gift, I have the perfect thing for you. These Spicy Roasted Nuts are addictive and easy to make. You can use whatever type of nut strikes your fancy, they just have to be plain, not salted. This is the third batch we have made in the last 2 days and it was also our third combination. Our first was almonds and peanuts – no hot sauce, they were good but not enough pizzaz. The second was pecans, almonds, peanuts and sunflower seeds and a little hot sauce- they were very good. The third- we were back to just the almonds and peanuts with quite a bit of hot sauce – very very good. It would have been awesome if I had remembered to add in the sunflower seeds – but that will batch #4.
When I first saw a recipe for home-made marshmallows I was a little intimidated. It looked like it was going to be difficult, but I had to try it! Am I ever glad I did as these marshmallows are delicious and not that difficult after all. I have made them for quite a few times and each time I make them someone is always amazed that you can actually make marshmallows from scratch.
Do you remember when you could buy a little brick of sponge toffee at the corner store for 5¢? You would nibble at it a little at a time, letting it melt on your tongue making it last as long as possible. If you ate too much your tongue would actually hurt! Can you tell I really like sponge toffee?
Sponge toffee looks like it has the potential to be an intimidating adventure to create, but the recipe only has 4 ingredients. It is all about the chemistry my friends and with a little bravery you can be whipping up a batch in no time at all. Anytime there is melted sugar and a candy thermometer the red flags go up and folks steer away from a recipe, but you can do this!
