Double Feature: Donuts

00:16 Hi friends, in this episode we're going to be doing baked donuts, and I just want to welcome you to Bite Me, the show about edibles.
00:23 I'm your host Marge, and I just want to say thank you for being here, and thank you for listening, thank you for your patience.
00:29 What you may not know is that it took me at least a dozen times to record this friggin intro and I'm sometimes wondering why don't I have this prerecorded?
00:37 It's a really good question because you'd be surprised at how sometimes how long it takes me to record this, but I digress.
00:45 It's been a busy couple of weeks, I've been in the kitchen experimenting, trying new things, trying stuff outside of my comfort zone, and I've conducted numerous interviews that are going to be coming out over the next couple months that I'm super excited about, so stay tuned for those along the way.
01:00 Lots of fresh things coming up. And until that time, we're here now. And what are we talking about? Baked donuts.
01:09 And you may be thinking, but Marge, donuts aren't usually baked, the really good ones are fried. And yes, this is true, but A, frying takes a f****** of oil and I'm not sure I really want to use that much oil.
01:23 It also makes them often a lot less healthy, and there's a bit more of a process to it when you're doing the deep fried version.
01:29 So you know what, I'm going to leave the deep fried stuff to the professionals, to the Krispy Kremes, the Tim Hortons for you Canadians, and let them do, well I think Tim Hortons actually most of their donuts are coming frozen now, but I digress.
01:40 But again, in any case, I'm going to leave it to the professional donut makers, because these donut recipes actually took not nearly as long to make as I thought they would.
01:50 And you may be thinking, well why the hell would you want to make donuts in the first place? And that's a fair question, because honestly, I don't even eat donuts that very, that much.
01:58 I have admitted, I do admit, you know, some people do. People brought some of the Justin Bieber Tim Bits into work recently, the Bieber Balls as I like to call them, and they were pretty good.
02:10 I have, I do, I do like the Tim Hortons Justin Bieber collaboration. Do you guys have those in the States?
02:15 I'm not even sure. But in any case, they've been a real hit at the Evergreen Cafe. Canadian icon of a coffee shop, Tim Hortons, even though it's not even owned by Canadians anymore, but that's a whole other thing.
02:28 So I don't even eat donuts that, that often, but sometimes you like to try something new. And I do get a, a subscription service sent to me every month.
02:37 And in that subscription service, they sent me recipes. Recipe cards. And so sometimes that serves as inspiration. And one of those recipe cards had Canadian maple bacon donuts.
02:48 And the picture was quite compelling. And the concept was good. I mean, well, you may all know how I feel about maple syrup.
02:55 That stuff is coursing through my veins, probably even as we speak. And so I had to try them out. I got this thing like a couple months ago, and I've saved this recipe card, eyeing it for the right opportunity to try it out.
03:07 And the opportunity is now. Now, I have to admit, when I first made this particular recipe, I wasn't that impressed.
03:17 And that is why I've included a second recipe in this episode, because it's like, I'm not sure, I'm not sure this is the one, you guys, because I do make everything that I talk about on this show, if you hadn't already guessed, of course.
03:30 And I wanted to, you know, want to make sure that I'm picking out recipes that you will all enjoy. But this recipe kind of really grew on me.
03:37 I made it, and when they were fresh, I was kind of, mmm, and then I put them in the fridge and the next day, I was like, wow, these have really kind of, uh, that little extra time really helped them to, what's, I don't know, mature?
03:51 I don't really know what the, what the concept is, but they improved. And I think really the big part of that was the icing and topping.
03:59 That was what I wasn't too impressed with. Actually, the donuts themselves were kind of cakey, and the second recipe I found, they were a lot less so.
04:07 So if you don't mind sort of a, I mean, that's how mine turned out, but if you don't mind sort of a cakey donut, then this one is great.
04:15 And of course, because they're baked, they're not going to be quite as bad for you because these ones do have milk.
04:21 Vanilla, apple cider vinegar, lots of maple syrup, your vegetable oil, flour, and baking soda. And then you make an icing.
04:32 So as far as making the actual donuts go, when you're not having to deep fry these, they don't really take that long.
04:38 You're preheating your oven. I did have to buy molds to make these. I guess conceivably you could skip that if you wanted to.
04:45 I picked some up off Amazon. It was like a three pack of silicone molds. That's what I ended up going with because I find silicone very versatile and they're pretty inexpensive.
04:54 So I haven't for any time I want to make something donut shaped. I guess it doesn't just have to be donuts but so I did pick those up.
05:02 But I guess, you know, in Canada we've been enjoying Timbits which are just basically I guess otherwise known as donut holes for a long time.
05:08 So you could probably make these in almost anything with the same effect. You don't have to go out and get the molds.
05:14 But pretty much you're mixing together the dry ingredients, then you mix together the wet ingredients, then you put them all together and then you put them into molds.
05:21 That's it. That's pretty much it. They came together very quickly. The only thing I found with these particular ones, I did need to put them on.
05:28 I think I had to put them on for a little extra time because again they're sort of like moist and cakey.
05:33 And I don't know if that's because there's so much maple syrup in them. There's a lot of maple syrup. It's like a full cup.
05:38 And that stuff is like liquid gold, people. It calls for it. Or Canadian maple syrup, which of course is the best.
05:45 But any maple syrup will do. Just don't use table syrup, of course, because that's just sacrilege. But you're going to add them together and then yeah, they bake.
05:55 Again, I found you had to bake them for a little bit longer in my oven, but of course oven times always vary.
05:59 When you pull them out, if you're not too happy with them, put them back in again. And maybe it's because I use silicone molds as opposed to more traditional molds, whatever those might be, But I did fine with the icing and the topping.
06:19 This is where I was sort of like unsure about this recipe but. It did work out in the end because the icing is essentially icing sugar and Canadian maple syrup, I guess maple syrup in this case.
06:31 And when I put in the icing sugar, it was three quarters of a cup icing sugar and one and a half tablespoons of Canadian maple syrup.
06:38 And then it said add more if it's still dry. Well, I found I had to add a heck of a lot more like way more than the one and a half tablespoons.
06:44 I forget how much I added in because I just kept slowly adding it in. But in order to make it something you could dip the donuts in afterwards, it needed quite a bit more.
06:52 So that's just something to keep in mind. Maybe I could have just reduced the amount of, well, actually, the amount that I ended up with was pretty good for the six, I did a half recipe of this one because I already also realized when I went to go make this, what was I missing?
07:08 There was something. Shit. I think I didn't, I ended up using infused maple syrup for this one and because I went to my cupboard and I didn't have, I don't know why, why did I do that?
07:20 Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm not even going to be sure why I did that because it calls for vegetable oil and you could use an infused vegetable oil, I like avocado or aloe oil or whatever the case might be, which I had in my cupboard.
07:31 So why did I do maple syrup? I think I was, oh, that's why. I used maple syrup for this one, sorry I didn't have my notes in front of me on that particular thing.
07:40 I used maple syrup for this one because when I went to go make this, it called for a full cup of maple syrup like I said earlier and I didn't have enough regular maple syrup.
07:51 I was like oh and that doesn't happen to me very often when I open the fridge and I'm like oh my god I'm perilously low on maple syrup.
07:57 I usually have a full supply of that stuff because I love it and so I had to swap out the infused maple syrup for the regular stuff and then I used un-infused maple syrup for the icing and topping and so I didn't use infused vegetable oil because if I do want to share these with Kris then it's absolutely
08:14 necessary that I don't make these too crazy potent sometimes. So that's why I use the infused maple syrup and if you have a uh an infusions pantry like I do when you're in a pinch like that and you're like shit I gotta pivot real quick you open up that pantry and you're like look at all these options
08:31 look at all these things I can choose from and fortunately something like infused honey or infused maple syrup and a lot of infused oils olive oil you do have to keep your eye on that or avocado oil do have a pretty need.
08:42 8 good shelf life so it's handy to have some of that in your cupboard you may not want a huge batch of it but having enough so that you can compensate when something like this happens is fantastic.
08:52 Now of course luckily because my husband lives on pretty much bacon sandwiches he made some bacon one day earlier that morning and I just nabbed a piece.
09:02 More too and chopped that those up because after you put the icing on the top then you sprinkled your chopped bacon on the top as well.
09:11 And as I said the topping you had to add quite a bit more maple syrup but when I first tasted the donut after they cooled a little bit I was like all I could taste was made of maple flavored icing sugar.
09:24 And I wasn't really too impressed with that flavor I just found that I don't know I was like well I wanted to eat maybe if I wanted to eat icing sugar I would just eat icing sugar.
09:34 And that's a funny story in a way because my sister could confirm this when we were little kids my parents were they're older parents.
09:43 Umm unlike a lot of people in their day they decide to wait until much later in life to have children.
09:48 My father was at the age of 45 when I was born which by today's standard might not be very you know wouldn't really raise too many eyebrows a lot of people are waiting to have kids later in life but back in the 70s that really wasn't done.
10:02 My mom was a- also a little bit uh oh you know 37 I think there was a bit of an age difference there but yeah they had kids a lot later in life and they had decided they were gonna raise rugged healthy children which I appreciate to this day but um what they didn't have in the house were much in the
10:21 way of sweets. SOT All right, or snacks. They really liked the health food which kind of bothered my sister and I because after we grew up and many years later we'd go and visit them that had all kinds of snacks and treats and stuff in the cupboard but when we were growing up it was nothing.
10:35 My mom either made the treats, I do recall her making ginger snap cookies when I was a little kid and we would have wholesome meals.
10:42 My mom was a great- Thank you much. But there was never any chips or cookies unless they were homemade like I said or any of the other like fruit roll-ups so they were big when I was growing up too and my mom did have fruit roll-ups but they were made and they homemade dehydrated that my dad built.
10:59 Not the fun stuff that came from the store like all my friends had. So sometimes- times. My sister and I were in elementary school.
11:05 We were so desperate for something su- sugary. We would sometimes literally eat icing sugar. I know that's super gross to say but it's true.
11:14 So I've had this jar of icing sugar in my cupboard for years. Literally years and I haven't touched it. I almost can't really look at it.
11:21 But for the first time recently I've pl- settled it out and used it and it came in handy so I was glad I have it on hand.
11:27 But yeah that's a little fun fact about myself. I do have a crazy sweet tooth sometimes. I have to keep under control.
11:34 Infusing my foods is one way that I do that. But yes I did eat icing sugar. And so when I'm tasting these donuts and I'm like this just tastes like maple flavor.
11:43 But icing sugar I wasn't that impressed. But because these donuts are baked and you know it's a baked good with milk in it and all the rest of it I kept them in the fridge and I put them in and the next day when I went to go try them I found that the icing sugar taste mellowed quite a bit and they were
12:01 quite lovely. And I changed my tune about. Now these donuts are pretty cakey so if you don't mind that then then these are a nice one of like whipped up together great and then it's a wonderful way to use maple syrup.
12:15 Of course if you're not wanting to use that kind of if you don't have infused maple syrup then you're just going to use your vegetable oil infused vegetable oil instead.
12:22 And voila you can inf- use them that way or you can infuse them by doing just the icing if you want it.
12:29 That's always an option as well. But in the process of deciding whether or not I really liked those donuts what I ended up doing was finding something else online.
12:37 And I did start looking at some of these deep fried donuts. I found an article in the New York Times it was talking about like classic.
12:43 Donuts. Deep fried. I was like oh maybe I'll try that because I was looking up easy donut recipes because I tend to really like the easy stuff.
12:51 And it was like easy classic deep fried donuts. I'll link to that article in the show once if you want to explore that for yourself.
12:57 But they didn't really seem to be too much easy about that. And it looked like multiple steps and then they had to.
13:03 You use like a ton of oil in order to deep fry them of course. And I was looking at my oil supply and everything's getting more expensive these days and I'm just like ah f*** it.
13:13 I'm just gonna look for another baked donut recipe. And I found one that I really really liked. And this one of course in bold right the top of the page is like easy baked donut recipe.
13:24 One bowl, perfect vanilla donuts. And I have to say I was very happy with the way these turned out. Very similar to the Canadian maple donuts except they do call for eggs.
13:35 Instead of milk they call for heavy cream. You're gonna use uh canola or vegetable oil. That's what you might want to infuse.
13:42 And quite a bit of flour. Sugar all the rest of the usual stuff. Of course you'll find this in the show notes.
13:49 But they were very sim- very similar. You put all the dry ingredients together and then you add the wet ingredients and then you put them in your molds.
13:59 One thing they did suggest, and I wish I had thought of this beforehand. Uh. With the other doughnut recipe was to put the dough, or the batter if you will, in a disposable decorating bag, which they said was optional.
14:13 Well, I mean, after all this time, how do I not have some kind of decorating bag so I can decorate some of the things that I'm making from time to time?
14:20 Except I don't really do it often enough to justify it, but you know what makes a great- bag in a pinch like that is, you put some of, you take out a ziplock bag, you put some of the batter in there, you cut the tip off, and bam, you've made your own little decorating bag, and it worked wonders because
14:37 sometimes putting the stuff in the doughnut mold is a pain in the ass, and that's what I found with the Canadian maple bacon doughnuts, but this one was way easier- because like, why didn't I think of that before?
14:46 It would be so much easier to handle this batter, and of course you used icing sugar for that as well, so I've made more use out of my icing sugar this week than I have in the last probably five years, and these ones were- I really like the texture of these ones, and also the glaze that goes on top was
15:03 lovely as well, They suggested you could add sprinkles on it, which I didn't have, but that would be a nice addition, you could sprinkle whatever you want on it of course, but the glaze was um turned out like white, because it is milk, always in the glaze, basically milk and icing sugar, but it made
15:21 a nice white glaze, and if you had those sprinkles on top it would look really pretty. So that's definitely recommended, and they turned out really nice.
15:29 I'm not sure which ones I like better to be honest, although it's hard to compare because I ate all the maple donuts first, and then I made this next batch.
15:35 Because I had to test out only stuff, I had to test it like six times, I was like hmm how do I feel about these, do I show this recipe or not?
15:41 And after six tries, I like yeah, I think I will. But at least this way, you have two different options that you can go for and decide which ones do I want to do.
15:51 And the second one, the easiest way is you're going to infuse the, you're gonna have an infused Dutch boil like an olive oil or something like that.
15:59 That is the best way, probably really the only way I guess, unless you want to infuse the milk. But that seems too tedious and you can't really keep that in hand and infusions covered and also don't do that.
16:10 It might really, it would probably really alter the taste so I don't recommend it. But I will link to these in the show notes.
16:16 I will link to that New York Times one if I can still find that article because that recipe did look good but it's a little more hands-on.
16:22 I think there are yeast donuts as well. I'll see you in the next you know there's something like rolling out the dough and letting it rise and all that kind of thing and and what have you but two easy baked donut recipes that are quite nice they can look really pretty because you can also I just used
16:39 I didn't use the decorating bag to put the glaze on top you could have. I just used like a ba- or knife to put it on but they looked they looked really pretty and so that's something if you're wanting to have fresh donuts on hand I would recommend either of these recipes and it just depends on what ingredients
16:54 might happen to have in your cupboard so I hope you give these ones a try I'm really excited about some of the other recipes that they have coming up to share with you if you enjoyed this one and you want to share it with somebody you love because sharing is caring and it would mean a lot to me because
17:06 it would help new people discover the show and as always my friends I am thankful for you I hope you're staying healthy and until next week stay high.