Baked Chocolate Chip Donuts

The inspiration for these donuts became an idea when I was so unjustly deprived of donuts on a Sunday morning......Flashback sequence now......We woke up early Sunday morning because we went to bed around 9pm on a saturday (what can I say we are a pretty boring couple sometimes). Anyways since we went to bed early last night and woke up early in the morning we thought we would go and catcht a matinee playing at the Japanese mall, figured we could buy some coffee inside the mall and go to Mister Donut and sneak them into the theater for our breakfast.  As we arrive at the mall everything was closed until 9am (expect the movie),  so sad to say I never got to sneak some donuts into the movie and since I had to make a dessert for a bake sale going on Monday I thought I would kill two birds with one stone and make some donuts for my contribution and one for myself (birthday gift to me :) 

Chocolate Chip Baked Donuts
Adapted from Food.com 

Ingredients

1/2 cup butter + 2 tablespoons, at room temp
1 cup sugar
2 eggs
3 cups flour
4 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup milk
1 cup your favorite chocolate chips

Directions

- Preheat oven to 350 degrees and spray a donut pan with cooking spray and set aside.
- In a small bowl combined your dry ingredients: flour, salt, baking powder and whisk together, set aside.
- In a electric mixer cream together the butter and sugar until light and fluffy about 4 minutes.
- Add in your eggs one at a time until completely combined and add your vanilla extract.
- Mix in your dry ingredients with the milk in alternate batches starting with flour and ending with milk, the dough will start to become thick and sticky.
- Once the batter is fully combined, fold in your chocolate chips.
- Using a pipping bag fill it with your batter and cut a large enough hole at the end to let chocolate chips easily pass through, fill each individual donut mold about 3/4 full and bake for 15-16 minutes.
- Remove from oven and using a butter knife go around the edges of the donut to help you lift it gently out of the pan and cool on a wire rack.




Dark Chocolate Glaze

1/3 cup butter
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips like Ghiraradeli
1 cup powdered sugar
2-3 tablespoons hot water


Directions

- In a medium bowl, melt your butter and chocolate chips together in the microwave at 30 second intervals until melted.
- Whisk in the powdered sugar, the mixture will get really thick to help thin it out add 2 tablespoons hot water and whisk until the glaze becomes smooth.  If still having trouble place it in the microwave for another 15 seconds and whisk until smooth.
- Dip your donuts in and place on a wire rack, keep whisking the glaze together after each dip so the donut will always get a nice smooth consistency on top.

Matcha Cupcakes with Matcha Cream Cheese Frosting

March 17 doesn't only mean St. Patricks day around my house, my husband shares his birthday with this beloved holiday. One Interesting fact about St Patties Day: In modern-day Ireland, St. Patrick's Day has traditionally been a religious occasion. In fact, up until the 1970s, Irish laws mandated that pubs be closed on March 17. Beginning in 1995, however, the Irish government changed this law, and last year, close to one million people took part in Ireland 's St. Patrick's Festival in Dublin. Pretty interesting considering everyone in the states associates the day with drinking. 

There are more facts here if you want to check them out. 

Since it was the hubby's birthday, it was his choice of cupcake flavors and living in Japan he has become very fond of Green Tea. So one day while at the local Japanese grocery store we came  a crossed a package of powdered green tea a.k.a matcha, and he requested a green tea cupcake. 

 This cupcake is meant for green tea lovers. Its green, moist, earthy and sweet.  When looking for recipes I noticed a lot of people complained that they couldn't taste the greed tea. A good quality matcha powder will help your cupcake take on the green tea flavor, I found a great recipe that I tweaked a little by adding some more matcha powder and came up with a awesome matcha cream cheese frosting. This is a excellent cupcake for st. patty's day because of course its green ;) but you can make this cupcake anytime where a cup of tea would be better eaten as a cupcake.

Matcha Cupcakes with Matcha Cream Cheese Frosting
Adapted from Showfood Chef 

Yields: 15-24 cupcakes (depends on the size paper liners you use)

Ingredients

2 cups flour
1/2 tablespoon baking powder
1/4 teaspoon salt
6 oz (1 stick plus 2 table spoons) unsalted butter, at room temp
1 1/2 cups sugar
2 eggs + 1 egg yolk
2/3 cups milk
2-3 tablespoons matcha powder

Directions

- preheat oven to 350 degrees and line your cupcake pans with paper liners
- In a small bowl combined your dry ingredients: flour, baking powder, salt, and matcha powder, whisk together and set aside.
- In a electric mixer beat your butter and sugar together until light and fluffy about 5 minutes.
- Add the eggs in one at a time until each one is fully incorporated.
- Add in the dry ingredients and milk in 3 batches alternating between the two until all is incorporated.
- Fill your cupcake liners 3/4 full and bake at 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean. Cool on a wire rack.

isn't green pretty

Matcha Cream Cheese Frosting
Oshii Treats Original

Ingredients

6 tablespoons unsalted butter at room temp
8 oz cream cheese
4 cups powdered sugar
1 table spoon milk
2-3 tablespoons matcha powder (depends on how much green tea taste you like)

Directions

- In a electric mixer combine your butter and cream cheese and beat on high until smooth about 3 minutes.
- Add in your powdered sugar 1/2 cup at a time until full incorporated, adding in your milk to help thin it out.
- Mix in your matcha powder and whip on high until mixed throughly and fluffy about another 3-4 minutes.

Fresh Strawberry Dream Cupcakes with Fresh Strawberry Buttercream

Today was a big day, not only was it my mama's birthday (Love you mom!) a co-workers babyshower, its also my blog anniversary. I started my little blog last year to share my love of food with anyone else who was willing to stop by and listen. I've met a lot of amazing people through blogging and been inspired to keep making new and fun dishes to share. I'm pretty proud of myself to actually stick with this project for the last year, I thought I might give it up or work would be too busy and I would have to  stop blogging after a few months, but honestly I would always find myself searching, thinking and creating the next recipe I was going to make and share. 

 Everyone in my office believes that these are the best cupcakes I've made so far, I actually saw one of my friends eat 3 cupcakes in 20 minutes, he said they were that good. I tell you the fresh strawberries combined with the delicious creamy buttercream is a dynamite combo.  It was seriously hard to resist eating the batter and buttercream by the spoonfuls while making these, but I made it through with just the wee tiny amount of batter and buttercream missing from the bowl ;) seriously though if you want to try a fruit cupcake you need to make these. The cake part is moist and not to sweet and loaded with fresh strawberries, the buttercream is velvety and creamy with the help of strawberry milk......

So good!

The BEST EVER strawberries I have ever eaten, there is something
special about the soil in Japan. 

Fresh Strawberry Dream Cupcakes with Fresh Strawberry Buttercream
Adapted from Brown Eyes Baker

Yields: 36 cupcakes

Ingredients

2 3/4 cups flour
1/2 cup cake flour
1 tablespoon baking powder
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup unsalted butter, at room temp
2 cups sugar
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 eggs
1 egg white
1 cup 2% milk
2 cups fresh finely diced strawberries

Directions

- Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and line your cupcake pans with paper liners.
- In a medium bowl combined your flour, cake flour, baking powder and salt, whisk together and set aside.
- In a electric mixer on medium high speed, cream together the butter and sugar, until light and fluffy about 3-5 minutes.
- Add in your extract and Add in the eggs one at a time, mixing each egg in with the butter and sugar completely before adding the next egg.
- Reduce your speed to low and add in the milk and flour ingredients in 2 batches starting with the flour and alternating with the milk, mix until combined.
- Fold in your diced strawberries in the batter with a spatula and using a large spoon or ice cream scoop fill your paper lines 3/4 full.
- Bake for 18-20 minutes or until a toothpick inserted in the middle comes out clean.
- Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.

Fresh Strawberry Buttercream
Oishii treats

Ingredients

1 cup strawberry milk, I used nesquick
5 tablespoons flour
1 cup butter, at room temp
1 cup sugar (not powdered)
1 cup diced finely, strawberries

Directions

- Using a small stove top pot add in your strawberry milk and place heat on high, add in your flour and whisk until the mixture starts to thicken, about 2-3 minutes.
- Keep whisking the mixture for another 1-2 minutes until its thick and has the consistency of pancake batter or cake batter. Remove from heat and immediately transfer the mixture to a ramekin or bowl and let cool to room temp. Takes about 30-40 minutes.

- In a electric mixture beat the butter and sugar together for 7-8 minutes on high, the mixture should be white and fluffy. Beating the butter and sugar together for this amount of time will help the sugar dissolve better.

- Add in your cooled milk mixture and whip on high for another 4-5 minutes, the sugar should almost if not be basically dissolved. If it is still slightly grainy the sugar should still dissolve the rest of the way when you pipe it on the cupcake.

- Fold in your diced strawberries and using a pipping bag with a large tip, pipe onto your cupcakes. They will keep for 1-2 days in a air tight container.

I link up to these awesome parties.

Avocado Egg Salad Sandwich

Ugghhh the weather outside is nasty today, the wind is whipping around, ice/snow is falling sideways, its just not pleasant to venture outside today.  I want spring and I want spring now! So I thought I would make a great spring sandwich and pretend that spring time is on its way and forget that we still    have 2 more months of winter here in Northern Japan :(

 You know what the best thing about spring is?.... Easter Candy! I love walking into the store and seeing aisles of easter candy stacked towards the celling.  My all time favorite, hands down, are the cadbury mini eggs, I could probably polish off a entire bag of them by myself.  It takes a lot of will power not to finish the bag in 1 day. 

  This spring time sandwich will not only have you thinking of spring, but it's a healthy alternative to your everyday egg salad.  There is only a small dollop of mayo and only half the egg yolk is used, the rest of your creaminess comes from the mashed avocado which is good for you because they are full of healthy fats. 

Avocado Egg Salad Sandwich
Recipe adapted from Skinny Taste
Yields: 2 servings

Ingredients

4 slices Whole Wheat Bread or 2 Whole Wheat egg twist rolls sliced in half
2 hard boiled eggs with yolks, diced
2 hard boiled egg, without yolks, diced
1 1/2 tablespoons miracle whip
1/2 avocado mashed
1/2 cup celery, diced (about 1 large stalk)
1 1/2 tablespoons apple cider vinegar
salt and pepper to taste

Directions

- In a Medium bowl mash together your avocado and egg yolks, add in the rest of your ingredients and mix until completely combined. Salt and pepper to taste.
- Toast your bread or roll and top with your acovado egg salad and enjoy.

It helps if you mash your avocado and yolk
in the bowl first before adding the rest
of the ingredients, I like to learn the hard way ;)