Double Chocolate Doughnuts

Ever since Faschnaut Day (Mardi Gras or Fat Tuesday for all you non-German folk) I have had a serious hankering for doughnuts! A faschnaut is a doughnut that is eaten on the day before Ash Wednesday. The tradition began because folks needed a way to rid their pantry of sweets in preparation for Lent so they decided to make and consume the faschnaut. Readily available in my Pennsylvania-Dutch hometown, faschnauts have not caught on yet in DC... 

Doughnuts, however, are apparently next "cupcake." In other words, they're the latest trend in the foodie world. News of doughnut shops soon to be popping up all over DC dominates my blog roll... But the key word there is "soon." Many of these places don't actually have a brick and mortar store yet. So photo after photo of delicious-looking doughnuts tantalize me like one of those dollar bills on a string.

Therefore, I was left with three options: 

Option 1) Skip out of work to metro downtown to one of the "pop up previews" where the doughnuts were being given away at other establishments to create buzz. My craving was intense, but not worth losing my job over so option one was a no go.

Option 2) Order them online. Online orders generally began at two dozen. Being that I don't have a family of five to feed, this did not seem practical so scratch that off the list as well. 

Option 3) Make some myself to hold me over. Option three it is!

Luckily, I purchased a doughnut pan on after-Christmas clearance at Target so I was prepared to fight this craving head on! I found a recipe for baked chocolate donuts with chocolate glaze that was perfect for this chocoloholic. And with whole wheat flour and applesauce in the recipe, these aren't half bad for you! Are they as amazing as the fried glazed fluffy bites of heaven you can get from a doughnut bakery? No. But they definitely are tasty, cute, and crave-worthy.

A few notes, I found these keep best when stored in a Tupperware container in the fridge. Even still, after a couple days the glaze got a little weird. All the more reason to eat these a few at a time!

Also, I realize not everyone has a doughnut pan. Unfortunately, I think the batter is too liquidy to make doughnuts or even doughnut holes without something to contain it. Some thoughts on alternatives - you could try baking this in ramekins. Or if you have metal cookie cutters, place them on a baking sheet, pour the batter into the shape and bake directly in the cookie cutter. Please understand, though, that I haven't actually tried either of these methods so if you end up with just a blob that barely resembles a doughnut, I apologize. If you're like me and enjoy a good doughnut with glass of milk (or for you weirdos out there that actually like it, with your coffee... yuck!) you may just consider purchasing a pan. Mine was under ten dollars, and trust me - when fall rolls around and you're busting out apple cider or pumpkin spice doughnuts, you'll thank me. 

Lastly, do not, I repeat, DO NOT forget the sprinkles. Look at how darn cute these little buggers are!

Double Chocolate Doughnuts 

Doughnuts: 

1 c. whole wheat flour

1/4 c. cocoa powder

1/4 c. sugar

1 tbsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1 egg

1/2 c. almond milk (regular milk should work fine as well)

1 tsp vanilla

1 tbsp canola oil

3 tbsp unsweetened applesauce

Glaze: 

1/2 c. semisweet chocolate chips

1 tsp canola oil

1 tbsp corn syrup 

1/4 tsp vanilla

Sprinkles!

Preheat the oven to 450 degrees. Spray doughnut pan with cooking spray. Mix flour, cocoa powder, sugar, baking powder, and salt. Add egg, milk, oil, and applesauce and mix until well combined. 

Fill each cavity of the doughnut pan halfway with batter. Bake approximately 7 minutes until fully cooked. 

While doughnuts are cooling, slowly melt the chocolate chips by microwaving for approximately 20 seconds at a time at a low power level. Be sure to do this carefully to avoid burning the chocolate. Once the chocolate is melted enough that you can stir it, add in the corn syrup and oil and microwave on low for another few seconds at a time until you reach a glaze consistency. Add in vanilla and stir. 

Dunk the cooled doughnuts in the glaze (I found twisting them worked best) and top with sprinkles. Allow the glaze to set before storing. 

Two-Ingredient Oatmeal Cookies

These cookies will probably not be the best cookies you'll ever eat. So why, you might ask, am I posting them? Who starts a post with a statement like that? What kind of food blogger am I!? 

Well, I'm a time-strapped, health-conscious blogger who believes in the value of honesty and dessert. That's who I am, and that's why I'm posting this recipe. Because these cookies, while not mind-blowing, are certainly good, and incredibly easy, fast, and healthy. And when I recently whipped up a batch for some friends I had over to my apartment, they all disappeared from the plate within minutes. So I'd say they're worth sharing!
The two basic ingredients of these cookies are oats and very ripe bananas. Never, ever throw away over-ripe bananas -- there's SO many options for what you can do with them: smoothies, baked goods, "ice cream" (I'm sure I'll share this recipe at some point), etc. If you don't feel like doing something with them right away, just pop them in the freezer for later. Anyway, in addition to the oats and bananas, you can add essentially whatever you like to these cookies. I chose to add some cinnamon and a little salt (which I recommend) and then mixed in some walnuts and chocolate chips. Raisins or any other kind of dried fruit, pomegranate seeds, and peanut butter would probably all be delightful as well! 

The recipe couldn't be simpler: mix everything together and scoop "cookie" sized balls onto a baking sheet lined with parchment paper. Bake in a preheated 350 degree oven for about 15 minutes. And that's it! Serve warm, perhaps with some ice cream. Then have a handful of the leftovers with some yogurt and fruit for a tasty breakfast.

Two-Ingredient (plus mix-ins!) Oatmeal Cookies

(makes approximately 16 cookies)

1 c oats
2 very ripe bananas (small/medium)
2 tbsp chopped walnuts
2 tbsp chocolate chips
Sprinkle of salt
Dash of cinnamon

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Mix everything together in a medium bowl. Scoop cookies onto baking sheet lined with parchment paper (or just spray your sheet well). Bake for 15 minutes.

Homemade Granola

Back in high school and college, cereal was pretty much my breakfast of choice everyday. My all time favorite has got to be raisin nut bran but I'm also a big fan of banana nut crunch, the mini wheats with fruit inside, apple cinnamon cheerios, great grains... yea, I like a lot of cereals. But nowadays, I don't eat it nearly as much simply because I find that whenever I have cereal for breakfast, I can barely make it to my 10 AM meeting without my stomach growling... I need more substantial and nutritious breakfasts to start off my day. 

One of my go-to breakfast is plain Greek yogurt and a drizzle of honey topped with lots of fruit and granola. The protein from the yogurt plus the vitamins in the fruit help start my day off right and granola helps fill me up while adding some delicious crunch to the mix. You have to be a bit careful with granola though. Sometimes it's sneakily not so good for you, loaded with sugar and empty calories. While there are plenty of good choices on the market out there, I've also been toying around with the idea of making my own for a while now, and the other day I finally took a stab at it. While I would tweak it a bit next time around (which I'll write about below), I think it turned out well! And the possibilities for customizing this recipe are endless so I'll definitely be making my own granola again! 

The basic parts of granola are the dry base (this makes up the majority of the recipe, generally oats and sometimes other grains), mix-ins (most often dried fruits and nuts but feel free to get creative), a sweetener (brown sugar, honey, agave, maple syrup, etc.), and some sort of liquid binder to hold everything together (sometimes the sweetener pulls double duty and also acts as the binder). 

Because I'm obsessed with peanut butter, I wanted to try giving my granola a hint of a peanut butter taste, which I thought would pair nicely with maple flavor as a sweetener. I also had some extra Kashi seven grain cereal that I found to be a bit bland on its own but worked perfectly to bulk up this granola, so that's where my recipe began.

First, preheat the oven to 375 degrees. In a medium/large bowl, combine oats with the puffed grain (if you don't want to go out and buy Kashi just for this recipe, just sub in another similar cereal or double the oats) and add-in your nuts. Now at this point, I also added in my dried fruit -- golden raisins and chopped dates. However, while the raisins held up just fine in the oven, some of the smaller pieces of dates got burnt and I ended up having to pick them out by hand and throw them away. So I'd suggest putting in the raisins but holding off on the dates and adding them in a few minutes before the granola is done. If you decide to use another dried fruit mix-in such as apricots, bananas, apples, cranberries, etc., just do a quick google search to see how it will hold up in the heat to decide whether to add now or later. Of course chocolate chips would also make a delicious (if not quite as nutritious) mix-in but that you obviously wouldn't add until the granola is done and completely cool.

For the liquid binder, I whisked together peanut butter and water and poured this over the dry ingredients along with the maple syrup I used as my sweetener. My syrup was sugar free and relatively thin. If yours is thicker, you may want to use less so its not too sweet and increase the amount of water you use. 

Now just spread your mixture out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or wax paper, keeping some clusters but breaking up any really large clumps so it cooks evenly. Sprinkle on some cinnamon and put it in the oven, stirring every 5-10 minutes. My granola was done in about 20 minutes - nice and toasted and yummy! Store in an airtight container or a ziplock bag with all the air squeezed out of it so it stays fresh. 

One last thing for today: a quick product review/shout out about these Barry's Bakery French Twists. I randomly came across these in the health food aisle of my grocery store and decided they'd be my impulse buy for the day. I'm really quite impressed! They contain no butter, eggs, yeast, or dairy so naturally, they've got to be gross right? Wrong -- these babies are good! They taste kind of like a lighter churro. They're great on their own, but I've also broken them up and sprinkled on top of yogurt for a healthy snack. If you're looking for more of a treat, you could pair them with frozen yogurt or dip in chocolate sauce. There's several flavors but so far I've only tried the original cinnamon kind. You'll have to let me know if you try another!

Homemade Granola

1 c. oats
1 c. puffed cereal (such as Kashi 7 Whole Grain Cereal Puffs) 
1 tbsp almonds, chopped
2 dates, chopped
1.5 tbsp golden raisins
1.5 tbsp peanut butter 
3.5 tbsp water
3 tbsp sugar free maple syrup 
Cinnamon

Preheat oven to 375 degrees. 

Combine oats, puffed cereal, nuts, and golden raisins. In small bowl, whisk together peanut butter and water. Pour peanut butter mixture and maple syrup over dry ingredients while stirring. 

Spread granola on baking sheet covered with wax or parchment paper. Sprinkle on some cinnamon to taste. Bake for 15 minutes, stirring halfway through. Add in dates and bake for another approximately 5 minutes until toasted. 

Stuffed Baked Apple

There are some mornings when you know your usual yogurt with granola or bowl of cereal and fruit is just not going to cut it. Mornings when you wake up and want something more, perhaps something of a treat! This recipe, my friends, is for those mornings.

In such situations, I usually turn to something savory like a veggie omelet or toasted bread topped with tomato and maybe even some smoked salmon, but not this time. This time I was craving something sweet, something comforting. And there's nothing more comforting than the smell of baked apples and cinnamon.

Take a medium sized apple of your choice (my favorite happens to be honeycrisp but anything will work; I used gala here) and core it, being careful not to go all the way through but far enough to remove all the seeds. 

Now mix together the filling. I love the combo of oatmeal and butterscotch chips and thought it'd pair nicely with some dried cranberries but you could also substitute raisins or throw in some chopped nuts if you please. Stuff the apple with the mixture and place the whole apple in a dish with some water at the bottom. I recently purchased these ramekins on post-Christmas clearance, and they happened to be the perfect size for one apple (not to mention that they coordinate perfectly with my red kitchen... can you tell I like the color red?). Now all that's left to do is stick it in your preheated oven and wait anxiously as the kitchen begins to smell oh so wonderful.
Cooking time will vary based on the size of your apple. You'll know it's done when you can pierce it with a fork. Mine took 36 minutes.


I made this recipe on the weekend but it could definitely be a weekday breakfast if you time it right. Get up and pop it in the oven (shouldn't take more than 5 minutes to prep), and then you have just enough time to do whatever you need to do to get ready for work while salivating in anticipation of your soon-to-be breakfast. To round out this meal, I paired the baked stuffed apple with a side of plain Greek yogurt mixed with some cranberry sauce I had in the fridge, a mug of hot tea, and of course had to throw in a slice of turkey bacon courtesy of my roommate ;) Or, even better, you could top this with some vanilla frozen yogurt and maybe even a smidge of whipped cream or butterscotch sauce and you've got yourself a decadent yet healthy dessert!

Stuffed Baked Apple

1 medium apple

2 tbsp oats

2 tsp butterscotch chips 

2 tsp dried cranberries

1 1/2 tsp maple syrup 

1 tsp lemon juice
¼ tsp vanilla extract½ tsp cinnamon

Preheat your oven to 350 degrees. Core apple part-way through to remove seeds, creating a cavity approximately 1.5" in diameter. 

Mix oats, butterscotch chips, dried cranberries, maple syrup, lemon juice, vanilla extract, and cinnamon. Stuff mixture into the apple. 

Place apple into a dish with water at the bottom. Bake for approximately 35 minutes, or until a fork can easily pierce the apple.