Once in a rare while, we wake up in the morning to find doughnuts on the kitchen counter. A doughnut fairy brings them. It’s magical. Here’s a picture of him, the doughnut fairy.

Ok…the doughnut fairy is Alan. Sometimes he gets home late from work and the doughnut store is open so he’ll swing by and pick some up. And quite obviously that isn’t a picture of Alan. Nathan had posed his toy just so and it was funny so I snapped a picture.

And are these the doughnuts from the store? No. They are from the other doughnut fairy in the house. Me! I made them. I’ve never ventured into making fried doughnuts. One of these days I will have to try. But fried sounds complicated with either shortening or lard or yeast and rising or I don’t know what else. So, these are baked. They don’t taste like fried doughnuts though. They are basically like cake baked into doughnut shape, it’s simpler and faster than frying though.

I’ve made them with semi-sweet, milk chocolate, and dark chocolate chips. The kids like them any old way because it’s CHOCOLATE! But I like them like this, with dark chocolate chips.

This is the recipe I use for baked doughnuts. Most of the times I halve the glaze recipe though. I’m stingy with my chocolate chips and I don’t mind splotchy glazed doughnuts. Neither do the kids.

Nathan’s favorite part of a doughnut? The sprinkles. See what I’m left with?

He sits there and tries to pick the sprinkles off.

Nathan loves sprinkles. He’d eat sprinkles for breakfast, lunch, and dinner if he could. Isabelle is a little pickier though. She only likes the ants type of sprinkles. But for Nathan they’re not only yummy but fun! How are sprinkles fun? Why sprinkling of course. Nathan likes sprinkling his doughnuts himself. But of course that is how I end up with sprinkles in strange places. Like over my butter.

I think that was the last time I let him sprinkle them himself. It’s weird trying to pick sprinkles out of your butter. And then it’s even weirder when you don’t pick the sprinkles out and then cook pasta and it’s funny sprinkled colors.

I was going through some old photos from January, sitting on my computer (why oh why do I let that happen), when I came across this.

It’s a dutch baby. I’ve never even heard of it before. It’s like a German pancake, I believe. So, why would I make something I’ve never heard of before or tried? Because I wanted to try something new for breakfast. Yep. We had to eat something so I searched through the Eggs & Breakfast section of Cook’s Country for a recipe that was easy and called for ingredients I already had on hand. And I came upon the dutch baby.

I like it because one, it was simple. After the initial first steps I could just put it in the oven and then walk away for 20 minutes. Two, as I already mentioned, ingredients in my kitchen. And three, more importantly, Isabelle ate it and actually liked it. And you know what else is awesome? Dutch babies are like magic for the kids. You put it in the oven and it puffs up all crazy and becomes a big bowl!

It’s funny. As I said, I’d never heard of a dutch baby. But in that next week after I had made it, I saw three different recipes for it. I think we’ll have to try this buckwheat baby with salted caramel syrup from Smitten Kitchen. That sounds delicious. Actually…I don’t know what buckwheat is. Those go in pillows right? Maybe it’s the salted caramel syrup in the title that is making me salivate. Yeah….because buckwheat pillows does nothing for me.

So, anyone have any delicious simple recipes for breakfast?

It’s 4 in the morning, I’m sitting at my computer digitizing photos from a visit we just had with my sister, and I’m in the mood for some of these.

Homemade peanut butter cups!! They are dangerous yes they are. YES THEY ARE! THEY ARE TOO!!! Ok…it’s late and I’m blogging when I should be in bed so excuse the craziness I’m about to unleash on you. Here it goes. Turn away!! turn away!!

They are dangerous! They are like stealthy little ninjas who want to sneak into your mouth. (Need to be sleeping crazy talk here. Yes, I am acknowledging the insanity spewing from my fingers. So what. I think I do my best blogging when I need sleep. It makes for a more interesting read. I do believe that is the sleep deprivation talking) Super dangerous ninjas. So dangerous you really shouldn’t have them in your house. Nope. Because if they are there, they will sneak into your mouth. Aaaacck!

I was too smart for the butter cup ninjas (awwww isn’t that a cute nickname for ninjas) the first time I made them. I’ve made them three times now. I don’t know what I’m doing wrong with the recipe but I keep coming up with extra peanut butter filling. So you know I had to use more chocolate and of course make more ninjas. Can’t let good peanut butter filling go to waste!! And oh my gawd there were so many of them. I like peanut butter cups but no one should eat them in the amounts that I had just made. So, that first time, I sent Alan off to work with the tricky little bastards. No sneaking into my mouth. No siree bob!

Nathan didn’t much care for my pluck to stand up to those ninjas. He was won over by their ninja ways. He was all, “ohhhh noooo and waaah daddy took all my ninjas!!” (ok he didn’t call them ninjas. He called them chocos or something.)

But they pulled this like jedi mind trick thing on me. The second time I made them, I tried to reduce the amount of filling so I wouldn’t be drowning in ninjas. But I STILL ended up with too much filling! So, of course, I made more ninjas.

But…but…wait for it…that was not the jedi mind trick part. The mind trick was, that second time, I didn’t send any of them away (say that in a horror story voice with maniacal laughter after).

Noooope!! They stayed in my fridge waiting to be all heeeya (do ninjas make that noise? Ummm maybe not because that’s not quiet and covert like but anyhoo) we’re IN YOUR MOUTH! (note here: they need to stay in the fridge because they get all melty since they are such sweethearts underneath their tough bad ass ninja selfs. Ok, not really, it’s untempered chocolate. To knock some backbone in them, or in not needing sleep talk, to stop them from being melty, temper them.

Those ninjas, they get in your blood man. Their siren call beckons and you NEED to invite them into your home. So, of course I made them again and hoarded them again. No sending my beloved ninjas to strangers.

See their powers!! I cannot escape. Fourth time here we come! Oh maybe you want some ninjas in your mouth too?

Today we went to the Asian store to pick up some shrimp balls for Nathan. Whenever we go we look for Chinese egg tarts for Isabelle. They never have any…good ones. At the old store, we used to go to, they made them fresh and they were delicious. But then the store closed down.

This other store we go to has prepackaged terrible tasting ones. So, one weekend I tried making some. We used this recipe for Hong Kong style egg tarts. But we didn’t have any of those tiny tart pans. I was going to try using a cupcake pan or a 4 inch tart pan. I asked for Isabelle’s opinion and she wanted the bigger tart pan. I think she liked the edges.

So, how did they turn out?

I didn’t find them very difficult to make. Some of the reviews said they had problems with the custard not cooking through. I think our bigger pans helped with that. However, they don’t taste like Chinese egg tarts. The crust is too sweet. Maybe I’ll reduce the amount of sugar next time and hope they’ll taste the same.

Anyone try a recipe that tastes like egg tarts from when you go yum cha?

A quick little post tonight. I got caught up on editing old photos (like back from OCTOBER) and completely forgot to do what I came onto the computer to do. But anyhoo…an allergic reaction.

On the weekend I made some gingerbread muffins. It’s the first time I’ve made them. And I believe there was an allergic reaction. With me. ME! My mouth felt funny and my jawline was itchy. No E.R. for me though. And…and…it’s late. I’ll write more next time.