My first cooking blog!

When I knew V had a day off of school this week I wanted to come up with something really fun for us to do so I came up with the idea of making donuts together.  I was so excited and I have to say my excitement eventually rubbed off on her but not until we were in the process! We had an unexpected blessing when our neighbor came over and wanted to play with V.  She saw we were making donuts and she jumped right in!  When we were done, she couldn't believe you could make donuts, she thought you could only buy them!!  :)  I have to say, I was pretty amazed too!

Here are the girls ready to make donuts (they had fun putting the flour all over their faces too!)
And we decided to make apple cider donuts because of the fall season.

This is the recipe we used.  Magazines are one of my favorite places to find recipes second to cookbooks.

First, you boil 1 1/2 c. apple cider down to 1/2 c. to bring out that delicious apple flavor!

While you are reducing the apple cider, mix together your dry ingredients.  It's pretty amazing the difference in the amount of ingredients between store bought donuts and homemade.  Oh, maybe about 20 ingred or so!  :)

When your apple cider is reduced and cooled to room temp, stir together the dry and wet ingred. together just enough to combine it.  Then refrigerate it so you can handle the dough a little easier.  It's pretty sticky!!

While the dough was getting cold, I started my pot of oil.  I was a little nervous about frying, hot oil has always scared me but it worked just fine!  It was a little tricky keeping the temp at 375 degrees though. 

Now we got to make the actual donuts.   It was pretty exciting!!   We used a glass for the donut and a bottle for the donut holes.  It's amazing what you can find in your cupboards to use insteaad of a "donut cutter".  Do they even have such a thing???  The girls found out it was important to keep the glasses well floured- too sticky otherwise!

Don't these look professional?  I was pretty proud and I admit I jumped around excitedly.  V made some comment about how her mom was so wierd but I didn't care :)   I made donuts and also made a fun memory for them to remember!

Well, they stopped looking so good.  We learned the hard way that if you don't have gobs of flour on your countertop, they don't come off so easily or pretty.  Oh well!  These were our first ones and the next ones turned out much better!!

My first little floater!  I was such a proud mom of my first donut hole.  Wierd, I know but what pride I felt!

Here it is done.  Fried and rolled in cinnamonn and sugar.  Looks yummy!  And just do you know, it was.

You put the sugar and cinnamon in a bag and shake them around to coat them.  It was kind of messy because the sugar kept coming out of the bottom of the bag.  Oh well, the whole kitchen was a mess but oh, what fun we had!!

Of course, we had to sample them.  Ok, maybe half of them!  But they were sooo good- I bet you'd do the same thing!  Katie said she didn't know you could make donuts at home, she thought you could only buy them at the store.  What a blessing to be able to share that experience with two 10 year old girls!!  Oh, and the baby on my back too!  :)

The girls were having so much fun, they put together a tea party and got dressed up!  We had chocolate milk in wine glasses, chocolate covered bananas and freshly made donuts all on my "china".  What fun we had!

Now I get to have even more fun.  Photography!!!  Another love of mine.  V again thought I was nuts, all she wanted to do was eat them but I kept taking picture after picture of the donut and  rearranging them countless times.  I was having so much fun!!!

Now doesn't that just make you want to make some homemade donuts yourself??