Creamsicle icing

For the icing on our lemon filled Starlight cake, we made creamsicle icing!

We started with Betty Crocker's creamy vanilla frosting:
- 3 cups powdered sugar
- 1/3 cup butter, softened
- 1 1/2 teaspoons vanilla
- about 2 tablespoons milk

Except we used 4 tablespoons of juice from clementines instead of milk and added about 2 teaspoons of their grated peel.

Angel's doughnut holes

I decided to try the doughnuts I've been thinking about for a week. School starts Monday here so we only have a day or two left to do something crazy.

This is the recipe from Cooks.com that inspired me:

HOMEMADE DOUGHNUTS from COOKS.COM

1 c. milk, scalded
2 tbsp. butter
1 tbsp. sugar
1 tbsp. brown sugar
1 pkg. yeast
3 c. flour
1 tsp. salt
1/2 tsp. nutmeg
1 egg
Confectioners' sugar

Pour milk over butter and sugars; stir until melted and cool to lukewarm. Add yeast, stirring until dissolved. Sift flour, salt and nutmeg. Gradually add half the dry mixture to milk; add egg and beat well. Add remaining flour and leave dough in warm place for 1 hour. Knead gently, roll to quarter inch thickness and cut into diamonds. Allow to rise 30 minutes to 1 hour. Fry in deep fat, 375 degrees and dust with confectioners' sugar or use confectioners' sugar glaze if desired.

As you can imagine, I deviated from the recipe.
I didn't scald the milk. Merely warmed it to near boiling in the microwave. Matter of fact, I used half soy milk and half two percent milk.
I didn't sift all the dry ingredients together, I simply put two cups of the flour in, mixed it, added the nutmeg, mixed it, added the egg, mixed, added the other cup of flour and before I mixed it I added the salt.

I used about 3/4 to 1 cup of canola oil in my smallest sauce pan to fry these suckers, and I could have probably used a little less than that, more like the 3/4 cup mark. Because I made doughnut holes usually slightly smaller than a golf ball that was plenty.

For toppings, my daughter's favorite was local honey and powdered sugar. I liked brown sugar and cinnamon. I even made an "adult" doughnut by thickening the honey white wine sauce from the fruit salad the other day and then rolling it in granulated sugar. I made cocoa doughnuts with baking cocoa, chocolate sprinkles, granulated sugar and powdered sugar. And mix every other combination among them...

Crêpes with strawberry-banana filling

I decided to make crêpes with strawberry filling.

That may sound unremarkable, but somewhere I stumbled off the tried and true path and started experimenting.

Ingredients for Strawberry-Banana Crêpes
Butter
Lots of fresh strawberries, sliced
2 to 3 bananas
powdered sugar (for dusting)
1/2 cup flour
canola oil
1 egg
2 tablespoons Chambord
4 teaspoons organic raspberry jam
4 teaspoons organic sugar
water
sea salt
3/4 cup milk (or in my case, soy milk)

I had my husband slice about a quart of fresh strawberries. While he did that, my daughter and I poured two tablespoons Chambord and the jam into the bottom of a one-cup pyrex measuring glass. We added water so it would hit the one cup mark. We put it in a small saucepan and boiled. Then we added the strawberries and the four teaspoons sugar. We ended up adding some corn starch later to thicken the mix, and we boiled it so long the strawberries were reduced to a lumpy syrup, but oh, well, lesson for next time.

For the crêpe batter, we put the flour and a pinch of salt in the bottom of a mixing bowl. We stirred in the milk and the egg. And then a drizzle of canola oil, about half a teaspoon. We stirred until smooth and then I whisked until my arm got sore. Crêpes cannot be lumpy. This batter ended up my smoothest yet.

I rinsed out the glass measuring cup and poured the batter inside, for two reasons: 1. to make sure there were no lumps and 2. for better control pouring the batter into the pan.

I took a sliver of real butter and heated it in the skillet over medium high. Once the pan was hot, I swirled the butter in the skillet and, preferably with the skillet not on the heat, poured about 1/8 of a cup batter. I eye-balled it, aiming for a pot about the size of my palm and thinner than a pancake. Then I swirl the pan so I can get it as thin as paper. I returned the pan to the heat. It only takes about 30 seconds for the crêpe to cook. It won't exactly bubble like a pancake, but it will solidfy. I have heard that a crêpe that is appropriately thin will not need to be flipped. But mine need to be flipped for about ten seconds.

Add new butter every third crêpe or so.

When all the crêpes are done, arranged those to serve on plates. Arrange sliced bananas in a line down the center. Add some syrup (because that's what the strawberries became). Roll. Add more syrup and sprinkled powdered sugar.