Today’s cooking challenge was both a success and a failure. Let me explain…
In a recent post about Life Changing Donuts, I mentioned that I would like to try a recipe I found for baked pumpkin donuts. I thought these would be great to try in honor of fall, because they are baked instead of fried, and because they looked easy.
I made a run to the store for all of the ingredients I didn’t already have. Kroger did not have maple extract, but I didn’t think it was a big deal; I would just make a vanilla glaze instead. This was only the beginning of things to go wrong…
I got up early this morning to start my Saturday with cooking and to treat myself to a special weekend breakfast. I gatherd all of my ingredients, pulled up the recipe, and got started.
I got ready to mix my ingredients and I couldn’t get my mixer to work. I mixed it all by hand. Does my arm hurt? Yes. First lesson: Check all equipment before beginning (Secondary lesson: I need to work out my arms more…)
Then I scrolled further down on the recipe page for the next step. What?!? You have to have a special donut pan to make these? I just though you could roll out the dough and shape it into a circle or plop it down and cut out the middle. Second lesson: Read an entire recipe before starting it.
So, I improvised. I put the dough into a muffin pan instead. This worked just fine. I had to bake for 15 minutes instead of 10 and this may have been due to the differences in the pans.
While they were baking, I got ready to make the vanilla glaze. Unfortunately, maple extract was not the only ingredient I was missing. I had no powdered sugar in my house. I forgot that I had finished it up on my Apple A Day challenge and had never replenished my supply. Ugh. Third Lesson: Keep better inventory of my pantry.
The final project was a muffin/donut hybrid. I liked both the texture and taste. I just think that a glaze is really needed. I had my creation (failure?) for breakfast anyways.
I have to go to the store later for an ingredient for tomorrow’s challenge so I will get the goods for a glaze. I’ll add an update to this blog after that.
To summarize, my lessons for today were to check your equipment, read the whole recipe, and keep better inventory of my pantry.
TEASER: Tomorrow’s challenge also includes a hole in the middle…
bitesbybrandi 