We’ve had another busy weekend, but a weekend busy making
the most of the sunshine. On Saturday we spent most of the day at a local park
(Fairlands Valley Lakes in Stevenage) with friends. We had a delicious picnic
with fresh home-made salads, naughty treats from the delicatessen and iced tea.
We also played a game or two of Frisbee as well as bananagrams! To top it off I
had an ice-cream – absolute bliss!
Today we’ve been upcycling an old hat stand. It belongs to
Mr KG’s parents when they got married and moved in together (30+years ago?) As
you can imagine it was a bit dated (pine – eugh!) so we’ve sanded it down,
given it an undercoat of primer and managed to get a first coat of white paint
on too. Next week we hope it will be sunny again and we can finish off a second
white coat before I get to decorate it. That’s right...decorate. When we
finally move out our bedroom is going to be Japanese inspired mainly with plum,
purple and pink-y tones. We’ve got bedding and a few nik-naks already but for a
bit of extra interest in the room we’re having a decorated hat stand. I’ll be
painting purple, pink and blue cherry blossoms on it and I can’t wait to see
how it turns out! I promise I’ll share a picture...
I’ve been doing a lot of experimenting recently and this
recipe was the product of one. Fortunately I made such a large quantity of the
mix that I could improve my technique with each batch that I actually baked.
It all came about after a rather depressing day spent suit
shopping last weekend. To cheer myself up my Mum took me to Lakeland to treat
myself to something cooking-related and I found the most adorable purple
silicone mini-doughnut mould. I had to have it!
Much like with the design of my hat stand, I had in my head
what I wanted the finished result to look like but getting it to that stage was
a bit of a problem. I also knew what I wanted them to taste like and the kind
of texture I was after so I spent a lot of time adding a bit of this and then
adding a bit more to the batter, tasting as I went along.
I was really please with how they turned out! The texture of
the doughnut is firm and cakey but not crumbly. They have a good strong taste
of vanilla which makes them extremely moreish and let’s admit. They look
seriously cute!
You don’t know how happy I was when lovely Kerry from Kerry Cooks pointed out that they looked like Homer Simpsons favourite doughnuts from
The Simpsons – that was the look I was going for!!!!
This mix will make somewhere between 24 and 30
mini-doughnuts and as moreish as they are you probably won’t want to eat ALL of
them to yourself. My Mum half to her end of term book club and they went in
minutes!
They’re great for gatherings like that, or afternoon tea
even! Why not get rid of boring old biscuits and serve one of these with a
cuppa instead? Your options are endless!
Here’s how to make them...
No comments:
Post a Comment