Baked Apple Cider Donuts

You may remember that on my apple picking adventure I made some yummy apple cider with my friends.  One of my goals for apple picking was actually to get some fresh apple cider donuts!!  Sadly it doesn’t seem to be a big thing out here on the west coast?  Cause the apple farm that I was at did not have it.

I did take some of that apple cider that we made and decided to bake some of my own Apple Cider Donuts.  I decided to do some baked donuts, cause really I am the last person who needs to be eating a dozen fried donuts by herself.  So I whipped out my donut pan and looked for the perfect recipe and found one from Vittles and Bits!

Baked Apple Cider Donuts
adapted from Vittles and Bits

1 1/4 cup flour
1/4 t nutmeg
1/8 t cloves
1/2 t cinnamon
1 1/4 t baking powder
1/2 cup sugar
1 cup apple cider
1/2 cup buttermilk
3/4 t salt
2 T melted butter
1 egg

Cinnamon sugar for dusting or Trader Joe’s Chocolate Coffee Cocoa Bean Sugar

1.  Preheat the oven to 425 degrees.  Grease you donut pan with cooking spray.

2.  Pour apple cider in a small pot and boil. let it simmer for 5-7 minutes, allowing the liquid to reduce to half.  Remove the cider from heat and let it cool. 

3.  In a large bowl sift flour, nutmeg, cloves, cinnamon, salt, baking powder and sugar.  Add in apple cider, buttermilk, butter and egg.  Mix well combined.

4.  Pipe batter into the donut pan, filling it about half way.  *Be sure not to over fill or they will come out looking like mini bundts!*   Bake for 5-6 minutes, remove from the oven and let it cool for another 5 minutes. 

PS.  I loved Vittles and Bits hint of baking these in the toaster oven to crisp up and then brushing it with butter and finishing the donuts with cinnamon sugar! 

Pumpkin Beer Ice Cream Float in my Tervis Tumbler!

It’s been a busy month, October has just flown by literally!  As part of the Foodbuzz Tastemakers program, I received a Tervis tumbler with the Foodbuzz logo on it in the mail a couple of weeks ago.  The tumbler we got is part of their Smartcup line, which I found out has a lifetime warranty, is microwave and dishwasher proof, has a self warming system for hot drinks and has a technology that prevents condensation rings on your table (no coasters needed!!). 

I put this cup to the test by making a Pumpkin Beer Pumpkin Ice Cream float!!  Earlier in the month I had gone out and had seen this on the menu.  I am a huge fan of both Pumpkin Ale and Pumpkin Ice Cream so I knew I had to try this.  While I didn’t order it while I was out on my date, I kept on thinking about making this for the next couple of weeks. 

Pumpkin Beer Ice Cream Float
inspired by a bar in Los Angeles

1 bottle Pumpkin Ale
2 scoops Pumpkin Ice Cream

The float totally held up well in my Tervis tumbler!  Unlike a Coke float, the beer float is enjoyed at a slightly slower pace.  The ice cream did not melt but instead turned into a lovely frosty texture and I had no rings on my coffee table when I was done!  I can’t wait to try out the many uses of my tumbler, next I’ll probably put it to the test to see how it holds up to a hot beverage.  

Have a Happy Halloween everyone!

Apple Toffee Blondies

Even though my apple picking adventure was sort of a bust, I was still in the mood for some apple flavored desserts!  I made these the other day for one of our USC football games.  My friend J who recently had a baby is still off chocolate, so I wanted to make a dessert that she would be able to enjoy as well.  I saw these and thought they were perfect for the game and for Fall!! 

I had decided to skip out on the frosting in the original recipe and it was a good thing I did since it was in the high 80’s that day.  But I totally want to try it with the frosting next time around…

Apple Toffee Blondies
adapted from Cookies and Cups

2/3 cup butter, room temperature
2 cups light brown sugar
2 eggs
2 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups flour
2 tsp baking powder
1/2 tsp salt
1 cup chopped, peeled apples
2/3 cup toffee bits

Drizzle

1/2 cup powdered sugar
3 Tbsp maple syrup

1.  Pre heat the oven to 350 degrees and spray a 9 x 13 pan with baking spray.

2.  Cream butter and sugar until well mixed and smooth.  Add in eggs and vanilla and mix until smooth. 

3.  Add in flour, baking powder and salt.  Stir in apples and toffee pieces until evenly distributed.

4.  Pour batter into the baking pan and pop into the oven for 30 minutes, or until done. 

5.  Let cool and drizzle the maple syrup powdered sugar over the blondie pieces. 

The verdict?  These were totally yum and a hit with the boys, not sure if they ran out or not since I left my tailgate early to meet up with my former boss and sit with her at the game that week.  That game was a scorcher and I left with a crazy tan. 

Apple Picking Adventure

For the past couple years my friend MC and I have been wanting to go apple picking.  For some reason or another we always seem too busy at the apple picking time of year.  This year we were determined to make it and we coordinated a month in advance with our “Cooking Club” and a date was set!  I checked the website and saw that they had a wide variety of apples at the farm, checked yelp and saw glowing reviews from people about their apple picking fun. 

Why then when we got to the Apple Farms in Oak Glen, CA- did they tell us that there were no apples to pick?  Turns out that this year due to weather there was not a stellar crop of apples, so it seems that only the first handful of cars that arrive actually get to pick some apples.  SO SAD!!!!  Not to worry, we turned the day around and made some fresh apple cider!  The farm also had u-pick pumpkins, raspberries, strawberries and flowers, however I think we all had our hearts set on the apples.  

The apple cider making was the highlight of our trip to Oak Glen….  You simply purchase a ticket at the General Store and you are set to make your own gallon of apple cider.  First picking the apples from a bin, then pressing the cider!

Somehow making the apple cider yourself makes it taste AH-Mazing!  Our cider dude was super nice and had a sarcastic sense of humor.  He told me he hadn’t seen anyone crank the apple cider mill as fast before, other than the 7 year old girl that came last week.  LOL damm!!!  While we didn’t get apples that we picked ourselves, we did hit the general store for an apple turnover, some apple butter, pumpkin butter and cinnamon apple jelly. 

Since our day was cut short without the actual apple picking, we did what any city girls would do and decided that we should hit the outlets since we just 30 minutes away.  The day was a success and we each went home with a bounty of Fall goods, (Fashion not apples!).

Prosciutto Fig and Goat Cheese Pizza

Yikes I have been on the go for the past two weeks, I feel like I haven’t been home to just veg out for ages!  Not that I don’t love going out to dinner with new and old friends, visiting the Magic Castle and hitting up some great concerts- but sometimes a girl just wants to be home with a bottle of beer and sit in front of the TV. 

For those types of nights, this would be perfect!!  You know I love the prosciutto fig combo from these lovely bites of goodness.  And in order to get your last bits of figs in and in honor of the wedding that I am going to this weekend on a Goat Cheese Dairy farm I bring you this easy pizza. 

Congrats to my friends Charlotte and Brock that are getting married and here’s to a weekend full on moonshine, goat cheese and some Southern BBQ!!!  Hoping to fit in a visit to Cracker Barrel and try some other regional goodies.   

Prosciutto Fig and Goat Cheese Pizza

1 pkg pizza dough
1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded
1/4 cup goat cheese
1/2 onion, caramelized
2 oz. prosciutto, tear into large pieces
6 fresh figs, cut in half
red chili flakes
olive oil

1.  Preheat oven to 450 degrees.  Roll out pizza dough to a 12 inch circle and lightly sprinkle the top with olive oil. 

2.  Sprinkle mozzarella cheese, prosciutto pieces, figs, caramelized onions and goat cheese evenly on the crust. 

3.  Place into oven and bake for 10-12 minutes, or until cheese is melted and crust is golden brown. 

Pizza Roll

The last tailgate we had was for a noon time game.  Those games are hard since that means that we need to get to campus around 8:30am and it’s a challenge to think of what to bring as well since its not really worth it to lug the grill to the game.  My friend Jenni was going to bring breakfast treats, so I decided to make Pizza Rolls as a quick and easy hand held savory treat. 

I had seen these before on the web and some other blogs before here is my own spin on it.

Pizza Rolls

1 pre-made pizza dough, separated into two parts
Pizza Sauce
2 cup mozzarella cheese
5 oz. Pepperoni
Italian Seasoning
garlic powder

1.  Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Roll out the pizza dough to the size of a sheet of paper.  Spread a thin layer of pizza sauce over the dough.  *If you do too much the sauce will make a mess when you roll and cut it, trust me I know.*  

2.  On each dough half, give a couple of shakes of the garlic powder and the Italian seasoning on each sheet of dough.  Lay out pepperoni over the pizza sauce and sprinkle with cheese.  Roll the dough (from the short side) like a cinnamon roll and slice into 1 inch pieces.   

3.  Place onto a cookie sheet and bake for 10-15 minutes or until slightly brown or the cheese starts to bubble. 

When it comes to food, it seems boys at football tailgates are easy to impress.  We threw these on the grill to heat them up and let the cheese melt a little more.  The boys all wanted to know how I made these, and for some reason the answer, “I made a pizza and rolled it like a cinnamon roll” blew their minds.  Haha we’ll blame that on the beers that went so well with these yummy bites!

Red Velvet Rice Krispy Treats

The next couple weeks are about to get a little crazy for me, but in a good way!  Between going out to DineLA (Los Angeles’ Restaurant Week), photography class, a trip to the Magic Castle and getting ready to go to North Carolina for a wedding it will be a busy few weeks.   I saw this on Runs with Spatula’s blog a month or so ago and I knew that this would be one of the first things that I would want to make for tailgating.  My team (the USC Trojans) sports a beautiful cardinal and gold!  And we always always have rice krispy treats, so these were right up our alley. 

I pretty much did her recipe exactly so head over to here blog and check it out here.  These were a total hit at the tailgate and I have even picked up some gold sugar sprinkles for the next game that I make it for.  Have a great week everyone!!