Apple Cinnamon Donut Cakes

Happy New Year! It's a new year and another opportunity to make a fresh start. I don't usually make resolutions, rather I use the new year to set some intentions and put together my to do list for the year. Number one on my list this year will be to dive back into blogging. I took a little bit of a break from blogging in 2019 as you might have noticed. I spent the year reassessing, refocusing and recovering from 3 surgeries after an abnormal mammogram last May. I'm all recovered and ready to jump back into my creative space of food and fun Halloween ideas and projects. But before I get ahead of myself and dive right into Halloween, I have a 'better late than never' recipe to share. I made them before Christmas and never got around to posting them. So these Apple Cinnamon Donut Cakes are my first post of 2020. A delicious cinnamon sugar coated, 3 bite morsel of apple cinnamon cake! Make a batch. Invite your girlfriends over for coffee, cake and conversation to kick off the new year! Enjoy!

Apple Cinnamon Donut Cakes

Makes ~2 dozen

3 cups all purpose flour
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. baking soda
1 T. cinnamon
1 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. cardamom
1 t. salt
1 cup brown sugar, packed
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 cup apple cider
1 cup applesauce
3/4 cup olive oil or canola oil
3 t. vanilla extract
3 eggs
1/2 cup butter melted
1 cup granulated sugar
2 t. cinnamon
1/2 t. nutmeg

Preheat oven to 350 degrees

In a large bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, cinnamon, nutmeg, cardamom, and salt. Set aside. 
In a medium bowl, combine sugars, apple cider, applesauce, olive oil, vanilla extract, and eggs and whisk until mixed. Combine wet and dry ingredients and whisk until incorporated. Spray mini bundt cake pan with baking spray. Using a medium cookie scoop, fill mini bundt cakes half full, taking care not to overfill. Bake at 350 degrees for about 10-12 minutes. Let cool 10 minutes and then turn out of pan. Cool completely on a wire rack.  

Prepare cinnamon sugar. Combine sugar, cinnamon and nutmeg in a small bowl and mix. In a small bowl, melt butter in the microwave. 
Brush donut cakes with melted butter and then roll them in cinnamon sugar until completely coated. Serve. Store covered at room temperature for up to 2 days.

Other dessert recipes to try:

Red Velvet Brownies with Cookie Crumble Frosting

Gingerbread Spritz Cookies

Gingerbread Petits Fours with Cinnamon Buttercream

Blood Orange Upside-Down Cake

Is it too early for citrus season? I know apples, root vegetables, and squash are front and center all fall long, but I just couldn't wait any longer to share this delicious Blood Orange Upside-Down Cake. All the bright citrus sweetness of oranges, hints of cinnamon and a sweet dense orange cake soaked with a blood orange simple syrup and the juice from the baked fruit. Utterly delicious and oh so comforting to get you through the cold winter...fall months. It's perfect right out of the oven with a scoop of vanilla ice cream or all by itself with a cup of coffee.  
Note: Blood orange season is pretty short and not every grocery store will carry them. Not to worry if you can't find blood oranges, you can substitute with regular or Mardarin oranges. But, if you are lucky enough to find blood oranges in the market, grab a few bags. Use the first bag to make this cake and the second bag to freeze the zest and juice so you can use the zest and juice well beyond the cold winter months. Enjoy!

Blood Orange Upside Down Cake

Simple Syrup
1 cup blood orange juice
2-3 cinnamon sticks
1 cup sugar

Place blood orange juice and cinnamon sticks in a small saucepan and heat until reduced by half. Add sugar  and heat on low until sugar is completely dissolved and thickened about 4-5 minutes. Let cool and reserve cinnamon sticks. Strain syrup in a fine mesh strainer to remove fruit pulp. Return cinnamon sticks to strained syrup and set aside. (Photo note: I added star anise the first time I made this, but preferred not to include it in the next few attempts, unfortunately I did not take new pics without the star anise)

Cake Batter
3/4 cup butter
1 cup sugar
3 eggs
1 t. vanilla extract
3 t milk
zest of 3 oranges
1 1/4 cup all purpose flour
1 1/2 t. baking powder
1/2 t. salt
6-8 small blood oranges, peeled and sliced into 1/4 inch slices

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Prepare simple syrup as directed above. 
Cream butter and sugar until fluffy. Add eggs one at a time. Add vanilla extract and milk and beat until incorporated.  Add orange zest. Add flour, baking powder and salt and set aside.

Spray a 8" cake pan with cooking spray and then line the bottom of the pan with an 8" parchment paper circle, taking care to smooth out the parchment to remove all bubbles underneath the parchment. 
Add blood orange syrup and cinnamon sticks to the parchment lined cake pan. Next, layer blood orange slices over the syrup and cinnamon sticks. 

Then, pour cake batter over the orange slices and smooth over the top with a rubber spatula to level the batter. The batter will be thick.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 minutes. At 20 minutes, place a piece of foil sprayed with cooking spray over the top of the cake, to prevent over browning. Let bake the remaining 20 minutes. Remove from oven and let cool for about 10-15 minutes. 

Run a knife around the edge of the pan and then place a serving plate over the cake pan. Flip the pan and plate over together to remove the upside down cake from the cake pan.  Serve warm with a side of ice cream or all by itself. Enjoy!

Other dessert recipes to try:

Orange Cornmeal Cake

Pumpkin Pie Cupcakes

Rustic Apple Torta

Gingerbread Petits Fours with Cinnamon Buttercream

Gingerbread Spritz Cookies

Thanksgiving is over, so that can only mean one thing...Christmas! What better way to get ready for the holidays than to make Christmas Cookies! How about gingerbread cookies without all the work of rolling and cutting. These Gingerbread Spritz Cookies have the buttery goodness of a classic Spritz combined with molasses and warm spices of holiday gingerbread. Quick and easy cookies with tons of Christmas cheer!  
                                            🎄Happy Holidays!🎄

Gingerbread Spritz Cookies

Makes ~5 dozen

1 cup butter, unsalted
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/4 cup molasses
1 egg
3 cups flour
1 1/2 t cinnamon
1 t ground ginger
1/4 t ground allspice
1/4 t ground cloves
1/8 t white pepper

Preheat oven to 375 degrees.
Cream butter and sugar in a large bowl with a hand mixer. Add the molasses and the egg and beat until incorporated. In a separate bowl, mix together flour, cinnamon, ginger, allspice, cloves and pepper. Add flour mixture to the butter mixture and mix until combined.

Add cookie dough to cookie press and press out desired shapes on an ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake for 6-8 minutes until dough is just set but not brown. Cool completely before decorating.

Vanilla Icing
1 cup powdered sugar
1 t vanilla extract
1 T milk
Stir all ingredients together and drizzle over cookies and put some icing in a squeeze bottle for detail work if desired. Top with sprinkles while icing is still wet.

More Christmas recipes:

Gingerbread Petit Fours

Gingerbread Biscotti

Red Velvet Brownies

Holiday Decorating 2017

I love the holidays but what I love more is when the holidays are over. I put away the decorations and get back to eating normal meals and not spending so much money. Don't get me wrong, I love spending time with friends and family and enjoying all the wonderfulness the holidays bring, but I really look forward to a fresh start. A new year to make my to do list and tackle each day of the new year. I have a lot of plans for this new year and as the holidays end I'm already planning for Halloween and lots and lots of recipes in between. But before I move on to New Year or Halloween, here's a quick look at my Thanksgiving and Christmas decorations this year. Happy New Year!

Thanksgiving Decorating

I went with neutrals again, but this time with white and green pumpkins with rustic and floral accents. I didn't buy anything new for my table scape this year, rather I re-purposed items from previous years. So if you look closely, you'll recognize some things from the past. The chargers, dinner plates and pumpkin plates were all purchased from The 99cent Only Store. 

The only thing I did buy were more pumpkins. I waited until they were on clearance 75% off at Michael's. Some weren't even white, they were orange and neon green. I spray painted them cream and aged them a bit with diluted brown paint. I bought the green ones, but some had dings in them.  I concealed the imperfections by turning them around or placing pumpkins or floral accents around them.

Christmas Decorating

I usually don't blog my Christmas decorating because generally I just plain run out of time. By the time I look at the pictures and start going through them, it's already end of January. So sadly I have a few years of pictures that I've never posted. But this year, I decided to just post a few of the dining room and the tree. Two years ago, I purchased both the red oval platters and the green square appetizer plates from The 99 as well as the Christmas goblets from the Dollar Tree for a total of $18. I bought the Cowboy plaid napkins at Tuesday Morning on clearance for $8. The runner, I bought on sale from Hobby Lobby for $10. Total cost for my Christmas tablescape was $36. 

This year we bought a tree that had no top stem for an angel or star to crown the tree. Instead it had a flat expanse at the top. So instead of  looking for another tree with a stem, I used the flat top to place a nest and a snowy owl. I nestled in berries and branches to radiate out of the top of the tree and I think it turned out great. My son said that there weren't enough lights at the top to light the owl up and I have to agree with him. He's kinda hard to see at night,  so I took a picture of him in the daylight. Isn't he cute?
 
Here's a picture of my dog, Socks crashed out next to the tree. This is how I felt every night after shopping, wrapping, and baking, all on top of my normal workload of school, homework, basketball practice, school concerts, PTA meetings and activities, cleaning, cooking, laundry... phew!

Christmas Cookies and Treats

I couldn't let all this Christmas cheer go without some Christmas Cookies. I made these for my son's teachers, PTA parents and friends and thought I'd share them here. Surprisingly, making 8 different types of cookies is easier than it sounds with the help of two really easy stand in recipes using cake mixes. The lemon Snowflake Cookies and the Spice Cake Cookies were easy to throw together because they only have three ingredients. Cake mix, 1 egg and cool whip. I dropped the lemon cookie dough in powdered sugar and the Spice Cookie dough I didn't and instead drizzled with a Maple Syrup Icing. Both turn out soft and super moist and delicious. Enjoy!

Here are the links to some of the cookies I've blogged before. The last two, I pulled from my Betty Crocker Cookbook. Enjoy!

Mini Shortbread Bites
Lemon Snowball Cookies and Spice Cake Cookies with Maple Icing
Cinnamon Cheesecake Cookies
Red Velvet Brownies with Cookie Crumble Frosting
Blackberry Oatmeal Bars 
Spritz Cookies
Russian Teacakes

Here's one more recipe...

Gingerbread Petits Fours

More Holiday decorating ideas:
Christmas 2014
Fall Decorating 2014
Fall Decorating 2015
Fall Decorating 2016