I’m sure you’ve heard me say that I prefer a somewhat healthy muffin.  I know that I’ve told you before how I feel about overly sweet muffins – that if I wanted dessert, I’d rather just have a cupcake.  But I did it anyway.  I made these sweet, delicious muffins that offer very few nutritional benefits and really can’t be classified as anything but dessert.

You know what?  I don’t regret it one bit.

These are the best muffins I’ve ever made and I wouldn’t change a thing about them.  The banana and white chocolate are perfect together and the tart cherries help to balance the extra sweetness from the white chocolate.  The streusel topping, perfect.

When I noticed three well-aged bananas sitting in the fruit basket (they grow up so fast, don’t they?), I figured I’d actually make some banana bread this time instead of banishing them to the back of the freezer.  Since I’m in the process of eating down the pantry, I also pulled out a half-empty bag of white chocolate chips that had been hanging out for a while.  I learned from Amanda that white chocolate chips are really good in banana-flavored baked goods so I was pretty excited to give it a try myself.

At some point during the ingredient-gathering stage I decided that muffins sounded like more fun than bread.  Then all of a sudden tart dried cherries had made their way onto the ingredients list.  I was obviously in one of those throw-it-all-in-there moods, so it should come as no surprise that I felt a streusel topping was necessary as well.

I’m glad I let go and followed my instincts on this one.  These muffins were outstanding and I take back anything I ever said about muffins needing to be a bit healthy.  I’ll never give up the healthy ones, but there’s certainly room for an occasional muffin indulgence.  Enjoy!

Cherry Banana Muffins with White Chocolate Chips

Streusel Topping Ingredients:
1/3 cup lightly packed brown sugar
2 tablespoons all purpose flour
2 tablespoons butter

Muffin Ingredients:
1 3/4 cup flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 egg
1/2 cup canola oil
3/4 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 ripe bananas, mashed
1 cup white chocolate chips
1/2 cup chopped dried tart cherries

1. Place rack in middle of oven and preheat to 375 degrees.  Grease a standard 12-cup muffin tin (I use Baker’s Joy) or line with paper cups (I spray the inside of the paper cups with baking spray, too).

2. Make streusel topping:  In a small bowl, blend together brown sugar and flour.  Blend butter into the sugar mixture with your fingertips until it has a sandy, crumb-like texture.  Set aside.

3. In a large bowl, whisk together flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt until well combined.  Set aside.

4. In a separate bowl, whisk together egg, oil, sugar and vanilla; stir in mashed banana.

5. Pour banana mixture into the flour mixture and stir with a large spoon until just combined.  Don’t overmix, but make sure all the flour has been scraped off the bottom of the bowl and mixed in.  Fold in white chocolate chips.

6. Divide batter evenly between the 12 muffin cups.  Sprinkle streusel mixture over the muffin batter, letting it mound slightly in the center of each muffin.

7. Bake in preheated 375 degree oven for 21-23 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted in the center of a muffin comes out clean.  Let muffins cool slightly in pan then remove to a wire rack to cool completely.

Related Recipes:

• Cherry Pecan Bran Muffins
• Whole Wheat Pumpkin Muffins with Cranberries and Walnuts
• Whole Wheat Orange Spice Muffins
• Whole Grain Sour Cream Apple Muffins
• Peach and Banana Bran Muffins

Around the Web:

• Nutella Banana Muffins from Delicious Days
• Blueberry Banana Muffins from My Kitchen Snippets
• Vegan Strawberry Banana Muffins (gluten-free) from Gluten-Free Goddess
• Banana Muffins with Pecans from Nami-Nami
• Banana Nut Muffins from Simply Recipes

Remember my first madeleines from the beginning of the year?  Well, I decided to give them another try – this time with a completely different recipe.  The result?  Madeleines that are even better than the first batch!   I used this recipe from Bitten, and the only real change I made was to substitute lemon zest for orange zest.

I didn’t bother piping the filling into the molds, a spoon worked just fine.  Just make sure you don’t overfill them like I did!  The recipe says it yields 12 to 15, but I think you could probably get up to 18 full-size madeleines if you scrape the bowl (and don’t overfill the molds like I did).

What I really loved about these madeleines was the texture.  They were light and tender, buttery, and perfectly crisp along the edges.  The only thing I wish I could change about the recipe is the amount of batter it produces.  I wish that it produced either 12 or 24 madeleines – I can’t stand half-filled pans or leftover batter!  So the next time I make madeleines, I’ll try the one from David Lebovitz that yields 24 cakes!

Do you have a favorite madeleine recipe?  Want to share some tips or tricks?  If so, come join the discussion at the Baking 101 group on Facebook!  Created by Master Baker Klecko and food writer Kim Ode, Baking 101 has become a place where beginners and professionals mingle, ask questions, share photos, and discuss all things baking-related.  And if you’re on Facebook anyway, you’d might as well become a fan of Pinch My Salt!

Happy baking!

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone!

On a whim, I decided to try making heart-shaped cinnamon rolls for a fun Valentine’s Day treat.  I had no idea if it would work, but I was thrilled  with the results.  They turned out so cute, I had to share the technique with you even if it’s a bit late to make them for today’s Valentine’s breakfast.

But who says you can only eat heart-shaped food on Valentine’s Day?

You can make heart-shaped rolls from any regular cinnamon roll recipe, but I happen to really like a dough made with buttermilk.  I improvised the dough for these rolls from the cinnamon bun recipe in The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.  Enjoy!

Heart-Shaped Cinnamon Rolls

4 tablespoons butter (1/2 stick), softened
4 tablespoons granulated sugar
1 egg, at room temperature
2 cups flour (plus extra as needed)
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 1/2 teaspoons instant yeast (or use rapid rise or bread machine yeast)
1/2 cup warm buttermilk (90 – 110 degrees F)
2 tablespoons melted butter
1/3 cup packed brown sugar
1  heaping teaspoon cinnamon

Cream butter and sugar using a stand mixer, or in a large mixing bowl with a hand mixer, until light and fluffy;  beat in egg.  In a separate bowl, whisk together flour, salt, and yeast.  Add buttermilk and flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix on low speed until all the flour is incorporated.

If using a stand  mixer, switch to the dough hook and knead on medium speed for 6 minutes, adding a bit of flour if necessary to form a very soft dough (will most likely be very sticky and that’s fine).  If kneading by hand, scrape dough onto a floured counter top or board and knead, adding only as much flour as necessary to keep dough from sticking, for 8 to 10 minutes.  Place dough in an oiled bowl and turn once to coat both sides of dough with oil.  Cover and let rise in a warm spot for about an hour and a half.

Gently push dough down to deflate and turn out onto a floured counter top or board.  Press dough out into a small rectangle then cover and let rest for ten minutes.  Meanwhile, mix together brown sugar and cinnamon in a small bowl.  After dough rests, roll it out into a 20″ x 7 ” rectangle.  Brush surface of dough with melted butter then sprinkle cinnamon sugar mixture evenly over the dough.  Gently press the sugar down into the dough with the palm of your hand.

Starting on a long side, begin rolling the dough towards the center, stopping before reaching the very center.  Repeat with other side then roll the two sides together until they meet in the middle.  Gently press together.

Slice the rolls into one-inch pieces then transfer to parchment or silpat-lined baking sheets.  Shape the pieces into hearts by pinching the bottom of the roll between two fingers.

You should end up with 20 -24 cinnamon rolls, divided between two baking sheets.  Cover with greased plastic wrap and let cinnamon rolls rise for 45 minutes.  Preheat oven to 350 degrees during last 15 minutes of rising time.

Bake cinnamon rolls at 350 degrees for a total of 15 minutes (or until lightly browned), rotating sheets from top to bottom halfway through baking time if using two oven racks.

Cream Cheese Glaze

4 ounces cream cheese, softened
3 ounces butter, softened
1 cup powdered sugar (more to taste, if desired)
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
splash of milk to thin, if necessary.

Beat together cream cheese and butter until light and fluffy.  Add vanilla then gradually beat in powdered sugar.  Spread glaze on warm cinnamon rolls and serve immediately.  You may also thin the glaze with a bit of milk to drizzle over the rolls, or decorate cooled rolls using a piping bag and round tip as shown below.

I have a confession to make.  Before making them myself, the only madeleines I had ever tasted were from Starbucks.  No one had ever made them for me, I’d never had a special pan to make them myself, and somehow I managed to spend a weekend in Paris once without tasting either a madeleine or a macaron—sad, but true.

I’ve always been curious about madeleines.  I mean, is there really anything special about them other than their shape?  Obviously Proust thought so.  But what makes them so magical?  And the big question—are they cookies or tiny little cakes?  Well, curiosity got the better of me one day so I bought a little package of madeleines at Starbucks.  And even though I knew that what I tasted out of that little plastic package was probably not a great representation of the classic French cookie (or is it cake?), I fell madly in love with the madeleine.

So now I can tell you why madeleines are such a big deal:  butter.  Oh, and let’s not forget the lemon.  Have I ever mentioned that butter and lemon are pretty much my two favorite flavors?  Madeleines can also be flavored with orange, and I’m sure that orange-scented madeleines are wonderful, but it’s definitely the butter and lemon that sold me.  And if you ask me, they are miniature cakes, not cookies—little lemon butter cakes from heaven.

I knew I had to get my hands on some special equipment so that I could try making the little scalloped cakes myself, so I ordered a couple of madeleine pans from Amazon.  After they arrived, I let the gorgeous shiny things sit on the counter for a few weeks—promising myself daily that I would make madeleines soon—but eventually I tucked the pans away in a kitchen cabinet where I promptly forgot about them.  That was a few months ago.  Well, a new year is upon us and I’ve decided to start crossing some things off my baking to-do list.

There are tons of recipes floating around for madeleines, but I settled on one I remembered seeing at 101 Cookbooks a couple of years back.  Heidi’s photos always draw me in, and somehow I knew I could trust the recipe.  I followed the recipe to the letter, taking special care to thoroughly coat my madeleine pan with butter to ensure an easy release.

However, Heidi mentions in the recipe that although she uses butter and flour on her pans, the friend who taught her how to make madeleines uses cooking spray with flour.  Since I had two pans, I decided to experiment.  I thoroughly buttered and floured the first pan, but sprayed the second with Baker’s Joy—a nonstick baking spray that contains flour.  I knew in my heart that the buttered and floured pan would work better, but curiosity won out over gut instinct in this case.

Filling the pans with batter was a little intimidating.  I had read that the batter spreads in the oven, and not to overfill the molds, but I had a hard time judging whether they were 2/3 – 3/4 full (as the recipe instructed).  My method of transferring some of the batter to a measuring cup and trying to pour it into the mold didn’t work out so well for me.  Next time I’ll probably just spoon it in, or pipe it in using a bag.

But it turns out I had no reason to worry about whether they were filled properly.  The batter spread evenly and a beautiful batch of madeleines emerged from the oven.

The pan pictured above was the one that was buttered and floured, not coated in baking spray.  It turns out that there was a pretty big difference between the two.

The madeleines in the pan coated with Baker’s Joy (on the right) didn’t rise like their butter-coated siblings.  And though they all released from the pan without too much effort, the butter-coated ones were much easier to pop out.  All in all, the butter-coated madeleines had a better shape, better color, and released from the pan better than the other ones.  From now on, I will use nothing but butter to grease my madeleine pans and I suggest you do the same.

The little cakes are best eaten on the first day while the edges are still crisp, so I suggest inviting a few friends over the day you decide to make them.  But if you do have leftovers, they are perfectly fine the next day—especially dunked in your morning coffee.

If you’d like to try this recipe for buttery, lemon-scented madeleines, head over to 101 Cookbooks and let Heidi show you how.  I ended up with exactly 24 regular-sized madeleines using her recipe.

Related Recipes:

• Lemon Shortbread
• Giant Lemon Sugar Cookies
• Quick and Easy Lemon Cake

Around the Web:

• Madeleines from 101 Cookbooks
• Lemon-Glazed Madeleines from David Lebovitz
• Orange-Scented Madeleines from Mark Bittman
• Meyer Lemon Madeleines from Alpineberry
• Classic Madeleines from Smitten Kitchen

From the moment I saw these sticky buns on the cover of the latest issue of Food & Wine magazine, I knew I had to make them.  It’s fairly rare that I follow an exact recipe from a magazine—or cookbook, for that matter—but every once in a while a photo calls to me in a way that I just can’t deny.  If you’ve seen the magazine cover, you know which photo I’m talking about.  The lofty, light-as-air cinnamon bun drizzled with the perfect amount of sweet and salty butterscotch sauce is like something out of a dream—if one has a tendency to dream of baked goods, that is.

But just as most dreams quickly blur then slowly disintegrate upon waking, my hopes for butterscotch sticky bun perfection were diminished as I attempted to recreate the ethereal treat in my all-too-real kitchen.  It just didn’t work.  My sticky buns weren’t lofty or light-as-air.  They were squat and dense and the brown sugar filling had bubbled up and out of the swirls, blackening and burning on the muffin tin and oven floor.

Now,  I’m not going to place blame squarely on the recipe.  I’m aware that I made a few mistakes, although my first mistake, to be sure, was to put these sticky buns on so high a pedestal in the first place.

But there were other mistakes, too.  First, I decided to use instant yeast instead of active-dry as the recipe directs.  And as I was in a hurry, or perhaps just didn’t feel like looking up the conversion (even though one of my fellow BBA Bakers has created this handy yeast conversion chart), I just guessed on the amount of instant yeast to use, and I’m pretty sure that I guessed wrong.  Next, as I spread the brown sugar/cinnamon mixture over the rolled-out dough, it seemed like way too much sugar.  Now I’m not sure if I accidentally measured out the wrong amount, or if I packed the brown sugar too tightly into the measuring cup, or if the recipe just calls for too much brown sugar for that amount of dough.  Regardless of the reason, I could tell that there was too much sugar, but I stubbornly packed it on there and continued on as the recipe directed.

But my final mistake, and the one that I am most ashamed of, was leaving the rolls in the oven too long.  Once again, I got caught up in the details of the recipe, forgoing common sense in the desire to follow directions.  The recipe says to bake the buns until they are golden brown.  Well, after what seemed like a reasonable amount of time in the oven, I checked on the buns and they looked fairly well baked, despite the fact that the miserable things had barely risen.  The problem was that they were as pale as when I first set them in the oven.  I quickly racked my brain trying to remember if I had accidentally forgotten to add sugar to the dough, which could have been the cause of their pallor.  But, no, I was positive that I had added the sugar.  So I left them in the oven for a few minutes longer, determined that, even if they had refused to rise, they were at least going to take on a beautiful golden hue.  And they did.

So out of the smoky, burnt-sugar-crusted oven emerged a blackened, burnt-sugar-crusted muffin tin full of squat, dense, dry—but beautifully browned—cinnamon buns.  Wonderful.  In my disappointment, I stubbornly refused to even make the butterscotch sauce, the one thing that had really attracted me to the recipe in the first place.  In fact, I didn’t even take the darn things out of the muffin tin.  I just walked away.

Eventually, my curiosity and love of butterscotch overcame my frustration with the buns, and I did make the sauce.  And oh, what a sauce it was!  I decided that if anything was going to save those hockey pucks trying to pass as sticky buns, this sauce was going to be it.  So I pried them out of the tin with a knife—at this point they were fairly well glued in by the burnt brown sugar—and arranged them on a plate.  They really didn’t look so bad once they had been released.  Worse things had come from my oven, that’s for sure.

Next, I gingerly drizzled a bit of the sauce over one of the rolls, instantly transforming it into something that looked quite edible, if not exactly beautiful.

But a bit more sauce and some chopped pecans boosted my confidence in the buns even more, and I decided I might actually be able to share them with someone whose expectations hadn’t been extravagantly raised by the photo on the cover of Food & Wine magazine.

I ended up taking a tray of the butterscotch sticky buns to my sister, who, I was later told by my brother-in-law, managed to polish off every single bun herself.  They must not have been that bad!

But whether it was my own fault or not, I stand by my initial disappointment in the buns themselves.  I will definitely be making the sauce again, and recommend that you do the same.  However, next time I will be drizzling the butterscotch sauce over Peter Reinhart’s Cinnamon Buns from The Bread Baker’s Apprentice.  If you remember, I wasn’t a big fan of the white glaze when I made those cinnamon buns for The Bread Baker’s Apprentice Challenge, but I think the butterscotch sauce and pecans are just the thing to turn those buns into perfection.  But if you already have a favorite cinnamon roll recipe, you should try dressing them up with some butterscotch sauce.  You won’t be disappointed!  Visit Food & Wine magazine for the Butterscotch Sticky Buns recipe.

So, did any of the rest of you try the same recipe?  How did it turn out for you?  Will you be making them again?

Related Recipes:

• Apple Cinnamon Buttermilk Cake
• Snickerdoodles
• Pumpkin Spice Cake
• My Mom’s Cinnamon Swirl Bread

Around the Web:

• Cinnamon Sticky Buns from Simply Recipes
• Gluten-Free Cinnamon Rolls from I Am Gluten Free
• Overnight Cinnamon Rolls from Pink of Perfection
• Brioche Cinnamon Rolls from What Geeks Eat
• Cream Cheese Cinnamon Rolls from Joy the Baker
• Cinnamon Swirl Buns from Smitten Kitchen

To me, nothing tastes more like Christmas than these sweet, salty and crunchy butterscotch candies.  They aren’t much to look at, but they are super simple to make, and I guarantee that your friends and family will rave about them.

For as far back as I can remember, my Nana always had a plate of these butterscotch corn flakes on the Christmas snack table.  One year, my mom got the recipe and started adding them to her plates of Christmas cookies, and so the butterscotch corn flakes got spread around to even more friends and family.  After I moved away from home, I started making them for my own friends and, after I got married, my husband’s family.  I’ve made them in Oregon, Florida, Sicily, and now southern Callifornia, and the recipe has been passed from friend to friend all across the country.   I have yet to meet a person who doesn’t love them, and if you make these for your friends, be prepared to share the recipe!

With only three ingredients, and no baking required, these are probably the simplest holiday treat you will ever make.  Enjoy!

Butterscotch Corn Flake Candy

1 package butterscotch chips (11 oz.)
3/4 cup dry-roasted salted peanuts
4 cups corn flakes cereal

1.  Pour butterscotch chips into a large microwave-safe bowl and heat in the microwave, checking and stirring every 30 seconds, until chips are melted.  It took about a minute and a half in my microwave.  Be sure not to cook them for too long, or the butterscotch candy will seize up.  If you prefer, you can melt the chips in a double boiler, then scrape the melted butterscotch into a large bowl.

2.  Add corn flakes and peanuts to the melted butterscotch and stir until everything is thoroughly coated.  Line a counter top with waxed paper and drop spoonfuls of the warm corn flake mixture onto the waxed paper.  Allow to cool for 15 minutes. Candy may be stored in an airtight container or large zippered plastic bags for two weeks.

Yield: 2 to 3 dozen pieces

This simple, delicious apple cake may be my new favorite fall dessert.  It is moist, tender, packed with tart apples and cinnamon, and very easy to prepare.  What’s not to love?

On a whim, I decided to update the popular Blueberry-Strawberry Buttermilk Cake with fall flavors by swapping in apples, cinnamon and extra vanilla for the blueberries and strawberries.  But the result of the experiment was so much better than the original, I’m not sure if I’ll ever make the other version of this cake again.  It’s that good.

Although the cake is excellent on its own, you could dress it up by drizzling slices with a salted caramel sauce and serving with dollops of freshly whipped cream.  At the moment,  I really can’t think of anything more appealing than that.

I really hope you give this cake a try, but if not, you should drop by my house.  I have a feeling it’s going to be a weekly standard for the next couple of months.

Apple Cinnamon Buttermilk Cake
Adapted from Gourmet

1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1/4 teaspoon salt
4 tablespoons unsalted butter (1/2 stick), at room temperature
2/3 cup sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 large egg
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 cup peeled and chopped baking apple (I used granny smith)
heaping tablespoon of raw sugar (demerara, turbinado or Sugar in the Raw)
extra cinnamon for sprinkling

1. Preheat oven to 400 degrees, butter and flour an 8-inch round cake pan* (or spray with Baker’s Joy or equivalent).

2. In a medium bowl, whisk together flour, baking soda, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt; set aside.  In a separate bowl, beat butter and sugar with an electric mixer until pale and fluffy, about two minutes.  Add vanilla and egg and beat well.  With the mixer set to low speed, beat in 1/3 of the flour mixture.  Add half the buttermilk and continue beating on low speed until incorporated.  Scraping down sides of bowl as necessary, beat in another 1/3 of flour mixture then remaining buttermilk.  Finally beat in the last 1/3 of the flour mixture until just combined.

3. Scrape batter into the cake pan, smoothing the top with a spatula.  Scatter apple pieces evenly over the top of the cake batter then sprinkle evenly with raw sugar.  Sprinkle lightly with cinnamon.

4. Bake in a preheated 400-degree oven until cake is golden and a toothpick inserted in the center comes out clean, 25 to 30 minutes.  Cool in the pan for ten minutes, then turn out onto a wire rack to cool until warm.  Invert onto a plate.  Serve plain, or with whipped cream and salted caramel sauce.

*You may use a 9-inch cake pan, if you don’t have an 8-inch one.  The cake will be a bit thinner than it appears in my photos and will bake slightly faster.

Yield: 8 servings

Around the Web:

• Mom’s Apple Cake from Smitten Kitchen
• Cinnamon Apple Pecan Crumb Bars from What We’re Eating
• Gluten-Free Sour Cream Apple Cake from Karina’s Kitchen
• Apple Coffee Cake from Simply Recipes
• Whole Wheat Apple Pear Cake from Kalyn’s Kitchen

Although this was my first time making them, I’m beginning to think that these warm and spicy pumpkin doughnuts are going to become a fall tradition around here.  Filled with cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg, cloves, and even a hint of cardamom, these doughnuts will warm your soul on a crisp autumn morning.

Have you ever made doughnuts from scratch?  The closest I had ever come to making doughnuts was back in my college days when I learned how to make faux doughnuts (fauxnuts?) by poking holes in refrigerated biscuit dough rounds and frying them up in a skillet.  They were pretty good if you dipped them in sugar and ate them warm, but not quite the real thing.  Ok, not even close.

I have memories of the real thing, though.  You see, my mom made homemade doughnuts for us once.  They were yeast-raised doughnuts, the kind which are lightly glazed or sugar-crusted on the outside, but only slightly sweet and impossibly soft and fluffy on the inside.  Though I was small, and the recollection is a bit fuzzy, I know in my heart that they were the best doughnuts I’ve ever tasted.  While the “hot now” sign at Krispy-Kreme may make your heart flutter, I’m telling you that nothing compares to a doughnut fried up in your own kitchen.  My mom only made doughnuts once that I can recall, but that one memory fills me with so much warmth, I know that I have to make doughnuts from scratch one day for my own children.  Yes, food memories are powerful.

My favorite doughnuts are yeast-raised and glazed, and rarely do I stray from that standard when visiting a local doughnut shop.  But after deciding to make doughnuts at home, I thought it would be best to start with a simple cake doughnut on my first go-round.  And while I generally prefer plain cake doughnuts to flavored ones, I decided to give pumpkin doughnuts a try when I noticed that the leaning tower of organic canned pumpkin that had been perched precariously on my counter since that last trip to Trader Joe’s (when rumors of canned pumpkin shortages briefly got the best of me), was finally threatening to topple and, perhaps, hurt someone.

After looking through several pumpkin doughnut recipes, I chose to use one from Bon Appetit found on Epicurious. And since I can never leave a perfectly good recipe alone, I made a few changes like doubling all the spices and adding a touch of molasses.  I also chose not to add the white glaze, and instead dusted the finished doughnuts lightly with powdered sugar mixed with a bit of pumpkin pie spice.  They were absolutely delicious!

The dough is very sticky when it’s first mixed, so you need to chill it in the refrigerator for a few hours before you can work with it.

The next step reminded me a lot of making biscuits, and in fact I did use a biscuit cutter.  Just dump some of the dough out onto a lightly floured surface,  then pat it out lightly with your hands.

Since the dough is still rather sticky, even after refrigeration, I dipped the cutter in flour before cutting each round.

After you cut out some rounds, it’s time to cut the holes.  I wasn’t sure what to use, since I don’t have a one-inch round cutter like the recipe specified.  But I do have an apple corer, and it worked well, even though the holes were a bit smaller than one inch.  Again, I made sure to dip the apple corer in flour before cutting each hole.

When deep-frying, you need to make sure you control the temperature of the oil.  Although it’s hard to keep it at the same exact temperature all the time, you should adjust the heat to try to keep the oil between 365 and 370 degrees as much as possible.  If it’s too cool, the doughnuts will absorb too much oil and if it’s too hot, the doughnuts will brown too fast and the middles won’t be fully cooked.  Make sure you have a thermometer clipped to side of your pan to make it easy to monitor the temperature of the oil.

Cook the doughnuts in batches, without overcrowding the pot.  Adding too many doughnuts at once will cause the oil temperature to drop rapidly, resulting in greasy doughnuts.

Cook the doughnuts until they are golden brown, then remove with a slotted spoon to a tray lined with paper towels.

After the doughnut holes have cooled, they can be rolled in cinnamon sugar, or whatever topping you decide to create.

I decided that I like these pumpkin doughnuts plain, but I did sprinkle a few with powdered sugar and a dash of pumpkin pie spice.  Perfect!

Pumpkin Doughnuts
(adapted from Bon Appétit)

3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
4 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon salt
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 teaspoon ground ginger
1/2 teaspoon ground nutmeg
1/4 teaspoon ground cloves
1/8 teaspoon ground cardamom
1 cup sugar
3 tablespoons unsalted butter, at room temperature
1 large egg
2 large egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1/2 cup buttermilk
1 tablespoon molasses
1 cup canned pure pumpkin
Canola or Peanut Oil (for deep-frying)

toppings:
1 cup sugar
3 teaspoons cinnamon
powdered sugar

1. Whisk first 9 ingredients (flour through cardamom) in a medium bowl to blend well; set aside.

2. Using an electric hand mixer or stand mixer, beat sugar and butter in large bowl until well blended (mixture will be a bit grainy). Beat in egg, then yolks, then vanilla. Gradually beat in buttermilk and molasses, then beat in pumpkin, in four additions.

3. Fold the flour mixture into the egg mixture in 4 additions, blending gently after each. Cover the bowl and chill in the refrigerator for at least three hours.

4. Lightly flour two baking sheets.  When dough is well-chilled, lightly flour a work surface.  Starting with about 1/3 of dough, gently press it out to a round that is 1/2- to 2/3-inch thick. Using a 2 1/2-inch-diameter round cutter, cut out dough rounds. Using 1-inch-diameter round cutter, cut out center of each dough round to make doughnuts and doughnut holes.  Arrange doughnuts and holes on the baking sheets as you go.  Gather dough scraps. Press out dough and cut out more dough rounds until all dough is used.  If dough is very sticky, dip the round cutters into flour before cutting each doughnut.

5. Line two baking sheets with several layers of paper towels.  Pour oil into large deep skillet or dutch oven to a depth of 1 1/2 inches. Attach a deep-fry thermometer  to the side of the pot and heat oil to 365°F to 370°F.  Fry doughnut holes in 2 batches until golden brown, turning occasionally, about 2 minutes.  Using a slotted spoon, transfer to paper towels to drain.  Fry doughnuts, 3 or 4 at a time, until golden brown, adjusting heat to maintain temperature, about 1 minute per side.  Using a slotted spoon, transfer doughnuts to paper towels to drain.  Cool completely.

While doughnuts are cooling, mix sugar and cinnamon.  Roll doughnut holes in the cinnamon and sugar mixture.  Lightly dust doughnuts with powdered sugar, if desired.

Related Recipes:

• Pumpkin Pancakes
• Pumpkin Scones
• Pumpkin Spice Cake
• Pumpkin Cream Cheese Roll
• Mini Pumpkin Cheesecakes

Around the Web:

• Pumpkin Doughnuts from A Mingling of Tastes
• Pumpkin Donuts with Pumpkin Cream Cheese Frosting from Pete Bakes!
• Baked Pumpkin Donuts from Culinary Cory
• Pumpkin and Hazelnut Doughnuts from Canelle et Vanille
• Baked Pumpkin Doughnuts from Recipe Girl

Click any of the photos above to be taken to the recipe.  Enjoy!

Did you know that cantaloupe and ginger pair well together?  I didn’t, but I do now!

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about chilled soups.  I like to eat them, but for some reason I’ve never made one for myself.  I keep buying vegetables thinking I’m going to throw them into my fancy new blender and create some amazing new soup, but then I forget and use the vegetables for other things.  The most recent example is celery.  I was thinking about making a light cream of celery soup and chilling it.  But then I had this bizarre celery craving and literally ate the entire bunch of celery in two sittings.  Yes, there was homemade blue cheese dressing involved, so perhaps that had something to do with it.  Regardless, the celery was gone and I had no soup.

So when I heard on twitter that another virtual lunch was planned, this time centered around chilled soups, I knew I had to jump in.  Do you remember our virtual BLT Lunch from a while back?  Well, the usual suspects are at it again today.  Cheryl, who resides in New York, is today writing from Singapore about her Mum’s Green Bean Soup Recipe, while Ellise writes from Paris about Zucchini-Cilantro Soup.  And of course there are many more.

My original plan was to create a cucumber cantaloupe soup with fresh ginger and mint.  But, as you might have guessed, I accidentally used all my cucumber and mint making something else (tzatziki, to be exact).  So when I remembered last night that I needed to create a soup for today’s lunch date, I didn’t have much to work with.  But there was no need to worry, this ‘minimalist’ Cantaloupe Ginger soup is delicious and refreshing and I’m kind of glad that I didn’t add the extra ingredients.

I think this soup would work equally well as a starter or a dessert if you want to serve it in the evening.  But today, it will be lunch.  As with all of my recipes, this one should be customized to suit your own taste.  I added a bit of half & half at the end and felt that it smoothed out the flavors nicely, but feel free to experiment and see what works for you.

Chilled Ginger Cantaloupe Soup

1 cantaloupe, seeded and cut into chunks
1 teaspoon fresh grated ginger (or to taste)
juice of 1/2 a lemon
1 tablespoon of honey (or to taste)
small pinch of salt
1/4 cup milk, half & half, or cream (optional)

Put cantaloupe, ginger, lemon juice and honey in a blender, and process until completely smooth.  Add half & half (if using) and blend until combined.  Taste and adjust amounts of honey, ginger or lemon juice if desired.  Serve well chilled.

Yield: 2 servings

Other Chilled Soups from the ‘Let’s Lunch!’ Crew:

• White Gazpacho from Serve it Forth
• Chilled Poached Pear Soup from Blog Well Done
• Chilled Strawberry Soup from The Naptime Chef

Don’t forget to search Twitter for #LetsLunch to see what the rest of the group is bringing to the party!  And I just have to tell you one more time:  I love my blender!