Pepper Design Blog

Homemade Chocolate-Dipped Doughnuts

And they’re gluten free. But don’t let that deter you my wheat-eating comrades, these guys are amazing.

My good friend Anna recently threw a party for her son’s 2nd birthday and featured these chocolate treats as the dessert.

They were so delicious. Rich, moist, flavorful and – dare I say, healthy? okay not quite, but with ingredients ranging from your traditional sugar and eggs to mashed ripe bananas and nay a stick of butter in sight, I’m counting it.

After discovering hers and her son’s intolerance to gluten and dairy, Anna has found ways to substitute key ingredients in delicious recipes to create yummy meals. The secret behind these doughtnuts? A fabulous cookbook that she recently lent me by Silvana Nardone, editor-in-chief of Everyday with Rachel Ray and author of Cooking for Isaiah (check out Silvana’s daily blog here):

Other than the unique flour blend that Silvana has created (which I’m thinking I can substitute with white flour – funny that I’m trying to re-gluten a gluten-free recipe?), the ingredients are basic: eggs, vegetable oil, vanilla extract, baking powder, ground cinnamon, salt and bananas.

Banana Doughnuts (from here)

Makes: 12, Prep Time: 15 minutes, Bake Time: 15 minutes

1¼ cups Silvana′s Gluten-Free Flour Blend
2 teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon salt
1½ teaspoons ground cinnamon
1 cup granulated sugar
2 large eggs, at room temperature
1½ cups mashed ripe bananas (3 bananas)
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
½ cup vegetable oil

Preheat the oven to 350 °. Grease 2 nonstick, 6-count doughnut pans. In a large bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, salt and 1 ½ teaspoons cinnamon. In a small bowl, whisk together the granulated sugar, eggs, 1 ¼ cups mashed bananas, 2 teaspoons vanilla and the oil. Stir the wet ingredients into the dry until just combined. Spoon the batter about three-quarters full into the prepared pans. Bake until golden and a toothpick inserted comes out dry, 12 to 15 minutes; let cool completely on a rack.

Chocolate Glaze

¼ cup boiling water
6 ounces semisweet chocolate chopped (about 1 cup)
2¼ cups confectioners’ sugar
1½ tablespoons light corn syrup
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Rainbow sprinkles

Stir together the boiling water and chocolate until melted. Sift in the confectioners’ sugar and add the corn syrup and vanilla; stir until smooth.

Set doughnuts on a rack over a baking sheet. Dip the doughnuts in glaze and set on the prepared rack; top with sprinkles. Enjoy!

Yum. And more photos from the adorable birthday party!

Favorite details include paper lantern hot air balloons (holding little dinosaurs who are each peering over the edge) hung up in the trees and a scrabble mat that doubled as a brightly colored tablecloth (above).

Happy Birthday Mr. Gavin!

PS he’s Kevin and my’s godson, which gives me even more bragging rights.

So handsome. This is my favorite picture from the day.

Have you been surprised by any alternative ingredient recipes lately? I must try these doughnuts again soon.

May Odds & Ends

I can’t believe we are already in the summer month of June! This year has flown by and now it’s near half over. I haven’t been great about keeping up my Weekend Fun posts recently and I miss those photo journaling moments (it’s nice foe me to be able to go back and see what we were up to when Liv was six months old or when exactly we took that family road trip). So without further ado here are a few caught-on-camera events from May.

Memorial Day! Our little neighborhood hosts a parade that the kids just adore, we waved flags, collected candy and pointed at all of the cool cars and firetrucks.

Well, I should say some kids collected candy. I was lucky enough for Liv to catch a toothbrush. She was like, ‘what the heck??”.

Later that day we wandered down towards the pick-up basketball tournament just a few streets down from the parade. We enjoyed watermelon on a warm day and watching daddy shoot hoops with his team.

Family came to town just for this big weekend. Liv loves her nana (and papa and grandpa and grammy).

She even learned to smile for pictures! Actually that’s a gritted ‘cheese!’ – her first word beyond mama and dada.

Speaking of, words are tumbling out of Liv these days. We went from just baby sign language to overnight pronouncements of cheese, car, milk, shoes (her favorite!), dog and so many more.

A shot from our beach day! This bathing beauty was ready to go.

In mid May we helped host a surprise 30th 80′s themed birthday for our friend Stephanie! Bring on the leg warmers and sequined headbands.

Yes, Kevin’s interpretation of 80′s was a  fluorescent orange camo snowsuit he found at Goodwill. He was so proud of that purchase.

In early May we took off for the Colorado river (which also runs along the border of California and Arizona) for a few days of lounging, wakeboarding and fireside bbqing.

Anyone notice something unusual? That’s our Bodie who helped himself into a water raft and then couldn’t get back to shore: ‘um, guys…’

He’s quite the water dog.

Sand toys and sunning!

We drive the 3ish hours to the river to camp twice a year, here’s Liv just last October on the right, and seven months older on the left.

Growing so fast.

I have made it a habit to delay the start of my work day every other Thursday morning to spend time with our mama group. We discover new little parks around town or visit the zoo. It’s such a treat and I look forward to it all week. Here we are at the San Diego Zoo and a local park.

Plus this beautiful baby shower (with my dum dum balloon cupcakes), this wonderful Mother’s Day and this birthday weekend! May was a great {and busy!} month.

Happy weekend to you all.

Balloon Bunch Cupcakes & a Baby Shower

Happy Monday! I thought I’d share a fun cupcake idea that I put together for a friend’s baby shower recently. Who doesn’t love lollipops and cupcakes? And when the two candy and cake worlds collide?

Inspired by a little blurb I saw in a Parenting Magazine article on creative cupcake toppers, I made balloon bunch cupcakes out of little dum dum lollipops using my favorite buttercream icing and rainbow nonpareils.

Yum!

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Balloon Bunch Cupcakes
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Materials: Cooled cupcakes, icing (store bought or homemade – see recipe below), rainbow nonpareils (round sprinkles) – any color would be fun!, dum dum lollipops, ribbon

I usually love a great homemade cupcake but on this particular day I saved myself a bit of time by using a boxed mix (a delicious lemon raspberry or homemade red velvet would have been very fun for this particular design!). To make things a little interesting, I split my cupcake batter into two different portions, half with a few drops of red food coloring and half as the original vanilla mix.

Plop of vanilla, plop of pink, plop of vanilla plus a toothpick to swirl it up! I recommend filling cupcake liners to just over half way so that you have a nice flat icing surface to work with.

While these guys are in the oven, it’s on to the frosting. I didn’t skimp here, this is my favorite homemade buttercream and it’s buttery delicious! Sweet enough to bring out a great flavor but a version that won’t immediately melt in the sun on you, which is important for buttercream icing + outdoor parties. Though I’m not sure I’d be daring enough to use it on a cake in direct sunlight…