DIY Heart Doughnuts ♥

 

... or should that be Donuts?!  That's probably what lots of you all reading this thought!  It is the 5th year I have been living in Canada, but there are some things I haven't changed in my spelling, or how I say things.  So my apologies to you if you were expecting donuts!  But please believe me, doughnuts and donuts ARE the same great tasting treats we all love!

 

I hope you all had a LOVEly Valentine's Day celebrating ♥ My husband treated me to a delicious dinner he cooked all afternoon ... an incredible lamb roast (my favourite), with mushroom risotto (my favourite favourite!) and then I did dessert... And well, I think you already know what it is!

 

Last year he also did dessert and thought it would be fun to make our own truffles!  Check out last year's Valentine's post to see more on that... He prepared the chocolate truffle, but we scooped and chose the toppings to roll them in - they were so delicious!

 

So this year, I wanted something we both liked, but that also would be fun to do together after dinner... Cue the DIY doughnuts!  During the day I did the prep work for them.  Making the dough, letting it rise, cutting it out into the heart shapes and then letting it rise once again before baking them.

 

That's right - BAKED doughnuts!   SO healthy right?!  I think in comparison to fried yes... still they're doughnuts but whatever - it was Valentine's Day!  Still, they were pretty good!!

 

I'll start with the recipe and pictures... but keep reading to see the fun part of decorating them which is the bit we did together! 

 

I originally found the recipe here on Spark People Recipes, and although I halved the recipe (which made plenty for the 2 of us!) there are a couple of things I would change next time I make the recipe which I will mention here just in case you want to try it too.

 

Ingredients (to make 12-16 heart doughnuts, depending on the size you make!)

 

2 - 2.5 cups all purpose flour

1 tablespoon yeast

1/2 cup milk (we drink 1% so that's what went into these!)

3 tablespoons unsalted butter

1/8 cup granulated sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

1 egg

 

Method

 

1.  Mix 1 cup of flour with the yeast.

 

 

2.  Heat the milk, butter and sugar until it reaches 140°F (I found this to be when the milk was simmering but not boiling yet).

 

 



 

3.  Add the milk mixture to the flour, along with the eggs, and mix until smooth.  (Here's where I would change something next time... I wasn't convinced that all of my yeast was completely dissolved in the milk.  I might do that separately from the flour next time and then add it afterwards).

 

4.  Add more flour, a little at a time until the dough is smooth.

 

 

5.  Cover and let the dough rise in a warm, draft-free area for 1 hour, until it doubles in size.  

 

6.  Split the dough in half and roll each half into a rectangle.  Using a heart shaped cookie cutter (or 2 as I did for different sizes!) cut out hearts from each half.  Use as much of the dough as possible!

 

 



 



7.  Grease two baking sheets and place the hearts on them.  Let them rise for another 30 minutes and preheat your oven to 375°F. 

 

8.  Bake the doughnuts for 12-15 minutes, until golden brown.

 

... Now for the fun DIY part of the evening.  Decorating the doughnuts (once they were cool!) :)

 

We each had 4 of the best looking ones as our "real" doughnuts to decorate.  But we also had a few small ones each (which I think didn't hold their heart shape as well) and a couple of extra large sized that well, just didn't look as pretty as these!

 

 

Dinner cleaned up and our decorating workstation ready!!  For most of the doughnuts I made a little water icing - powdered sugar and a little water stirred up and ready to use!

 



 

This is one of my favourites that Jonathan made!  Icing on top with cookies and cream crumble all over the top.  I can totally see this one at Tim Horton's!!

 

Here are my four you've already seen up at the top...

 

 

Icing and chocolate sprinkles...

White icing and edible pearls for the classy look...

 

The colourful fun guy dipped in sprinkles!

 



And the pink writing icing stripes on this one... I wouldn't usually choose pink, but well it was Valentine's Day after all ♥

These are Jonathan's featured four!  He has the cookies and cream... a good old fashioned plain doughnut dipped in sugar... the bottom left one might look the same as this but actually it's filled with Strawberry Rhubarb JAM!!  (His favourite!)... and then the final one is a glazed doughnut!

The original recipe said if we shook the hot doughnuts in sugar it would stick... Hmm well we tried this and it didn't work for us!  So we melted some butter and lightly greased them up before dipping them in sugar.  This did stick so it worked for us :)

 

Anddd, with icing and creativity still leftover we also decorated some of the small hearts as well!  

 

We were pretty impressed with the taste of the baked doughnuts and it was a lot of fun to create and decorate these together as part of our Valentine's Day dinner ♥

 

Have a great week & thanks for reading!!

 

*** My blog is 1 year old ***

 

Look back at what I wrote 1 year ago today!

 

Sunday Tea Cakes ~ Click here to read about these pretty mini sponge cakes! 

 

 

DIY Shoe Clips

Happy New Year!!

 

I love this post Christmas blogging chance to write about the gifts I made and couldn't share with you all before I actually gave them away.  To have something in the works for a couple of months, to have photos on the hard drive just waiting, and then to actually send them across the pond to England way before Christmas before eventually seeing them be opened on Christmas Day!!

 

 

I made 3 sets of these bow shoe clips, after originally thinking I would make some cute felt hearts (like last year's Valentine's heart pocket sneakers) to attach onto shoe clips.  But on thinking about the gift recipients, and versatility of wearing the clips on any shoe, or with any outfit I went with these, still cute but maybe also 'prettier' shoe clips that hopefully my sister, Mum and sister-in-law would love!

 

Back in September I bought these great shoe clips from Buckle Boutique, ordered online from the Couture Embellishment shop on Etsy.  I did some research, and it generally seemed like everybody was recommending these clips.  I should have taken a photo of them but I guess you can see them on the link above.  The clips are metal and very sturdy, and then attached to a circle of black leather (I believe you can also get them in white).  This made for a really great way to attach my bows to with hot glue.  I'd definitely buy these again!

 

So between September and November when I actually made the clips, I did lots of thinking and research on the kind of clips I'd love to make.

 

A great inspiration was this post from 'Green Wedding Shoes' who gave me an idea of what dimensions I would be using.  Check out her post for the amazing tutorial (she has actual photos of the process unlike me! :-S ), and also another kind of clip - the flowers. 

 

For my Mummy dearest I made a cream coloured satin ribbon. 

 

 

Per shoe I had one long length ribbon and one medium length ribbon, glued the ends together to make loops.  Then, with a little glue on the inside of each loop (in the middle) press it down so it makes more of an sideways 8 shape.  Do this for each of the long and medium length ribbons.  Then, with a smaller length ribbon cut the ends to make a small indented triangle on each end of the ribbon. This will be the bottom piece.  Glue each of the layers together - the triangle cut ends on the bottom, then the longest loop piece, then the medium one and then, finally an even smaller ribbon piece to wrap around the middle and make the bow.

 

I actually had to cut down the leather circle of the shoe clip to fit it to the same size of the ribbon but that worked out fine, and you couldn't see the clip at all once attached to the ribbon.

 

I can't wait to try these bow clips with other ribbons as well, maybe some sturdier ribbons, or with different textures.  I went with a safe bet with these first ones, in a neutral but pretty colour that I think will go with shoes of my Mums.  Hope so anyway!

 



So for my sister and sister-in-law I wanted something to go with black flat shoes, nothing too crazy but still with a little pizzazz.  I went with some stiff black glitter felt I had.  It would show up on other black shoes, but still had a Christmassy/more glam feel than just plain black.  And the sturdy felt was SO easy to work with!!

 



Choosing to do a thicker width for these ones, I loved how chunky the bow looked when it was finished.

I did slightly shorter dimensions, and also finished the bottom felt piece edges with pinking shears instead of a indented cut triangle, and then for the wrap around top piece I also gave it the pinking sheared edge just because I thought it looked better than a plain straight cut! 

 



I REALLY want to make one of these pairs for myself!  Luckily my sister lives in England, and my sister-in-law is here in Canada so they will never wear them at the same time in the same place... But if I make and wear them too... Uh oh I guess then it could happen!!

 

An early DIY gift made, as we had to ship our English package by the beginning of December.  They each had their own adventures... my Mum's was opened as planned on Christmas Day, then for my sister (as she had to work on Christmas Day) - I actually got to watch her open them on Skype on Boxing Day... and then, even later on the 28th December my in-laws got to have their official "Christmas morning" with gifts after their power finally came back on after the ice storm in Toronto left them without for 5 days!



 



 

I loosely taped the shoe clips to these perfect scrapbook pieces of card from a pack I had already, they were perfect for this with the design at the bottom and room on the top to write a message!  Wrapped in tissue wrap they made it safely to England yey!

 

I'm totally going to make many more of these clips and definitely recommend them as an easy DIY project... maybe for some special people in your life on Valentine's Day!?

 

They can honestly be made into any kind of bows, other fun clips... Small versions for little girls, novelty felt designs maybe, or what about adding beading or more glitzy jewels... Other ideas I had were also using buttons...  Okay yeah, the possibilities are endless and I'm sure you have your own ideas too!  I'd love to see your clips if you make some :)  Shoot me an email with some pics!

 

Thanks for reading my first post of 2014!  Have a great year!

A February Round-Up: Valentine Hearts, Pasta and Truffles!

With February coming to an end this week, March seems to have RUSHED here and the months are flying by.  To be honest, I would love some more snow before Spring comes but I am excited for new crafty and baking plans I have coming up!

Before the month is out I wanted to blog a few photos and ideas both my husband and I have been working on over Valentine's Day and with his new Pasta Maker attachment for our stand mixer :-)

First up is my crafting for Valentine's Day.  During Movember moustaches (see them here or buy them here!) and over Christmas I discovered a love for felting and stuffing!  I decided Valentine's Day would need something like this too, and with my new pinking shears (thanks Mum!) I got to work.

I chose some less Valentine-like colours for Jonathan, the darker red, grey and black (with just a little sparkle) rather than the pinks and reds we see all over the stores in February!

Using a heart cookie cutter I was able to trace the shape of 12 hearts per page of felt and so ended up with 36 heart shapes that I could then cut out, piece together, sew, stuff and then close up!!  And voila 18 hearts!

On Valentine's Day morning I left 1 in a jar to add a little intrigue... he knew what they were but not where they were!  I had hidden these little hearts (I like to call them 'pocket sneakers') all over our apartment... And now, nearly 2 weeks later he still has a few to find but the jar is getting fuller!

Now most are found, they're perfect for Valentine's decorations, or for sneaking into pockets or bags, or somewhere fun just to say I love you! (...I found one in my glasses case just the other day!)

Moving on to some foods... For Jonathan's birthday this year he received the Kitchen Aid stand mixer pasta attachment and he tried it out for the first time on Valentine's Day.  Incredible to have fresh made pasta when you get home from work late in the evening, along with his amazing veal milanese.  He really had been hard at work all day!!  He even made a four cheese stuffed, heart shaped ravioli, who knew his creativeness would be that cute :-P

For the pasta dough he used Jamie Oliver's recipe (click here).  Yes it says it serves 6, and yes there are only 2 of us - but the amount he made meant we got the heart shaped ravioli for dinner that night, a few leftover for lunch the next day and then the remaining dough we made into linguine a few nights later which served us twice more!!  A great recipe if you want lots of dough to try different things with, or if you're giving away some of the pasta/saving for later in the week!

Not that I can claim to any of the cooking that night, but I can however share the links he used to make my delicious meal!  He used the Food Network recipe from Giada for the Veal Milanese, and also her Vodka Sauce from this recipe (minus the penne!), and then for dessert he made a chocolate truffle mix which we could make our own truffles with!!  He used Alton Brown's recipe with a few tweaks... Sherry instead of brandy, and in fact he refrigerated the whole mix in a dish and we did our own scooping and coating with a choice of powdered sugar, cocoa powder, crushed pistachios and my FAVOURITE - crushed Amaretti biscuits :-)

Valentine's Day was so fun and very delicious!  And it left us with lots of leftovers and ideas of things to try next...

We made Jonathan's family some truffles and delivered them to church... We ate pasta for a good few days afterwards, and I got to try out the pasta cutter when we made our linguine, and we have also since made a fresh pasta lasagna!  SO GOOD!

A few days of linguine and sauce leftover from Valentine's Day and then this week's lasagna!

So here we are, novice pasta makers...expert eaters... and with our heart filled house this Valentine's Day and month! ♥

Hope you've all had a great February celebrating!  Let me know what you've been working on this month, I'd love to see :-)