Chocolate Glazed Baked Doughnut Muffins

After going through several recipes, trying to use up my sour cream, I finished up the last of my sour cream with this recipe. Originally, I planned to make one batch of these donut muffins, but after realizing I would have a few tbsps of sour cream left, I decided to use up all the sour cream and adjust the amount of ingredients accordingly.

The method used to make these muffins involves reverse creaming. Reverse creaming is when you add butter to the dry ingredients and work it in, instead of creaming butter and sugar first. This makes the texture of the treat more tender and results in a tighter crumb. This method is also used when making scones and biscuits.

These donut muffins really did resemble donuts. They're the healthier version of donuts. I thought it tasted pretty good, not too sweet and nice texture. My brother didn't like these as much because he suspected me of putting whole wheat inside. (Shh, he doesn't know yet ;) My friend said that it was a bit dry, but I think that might be because it was a day old. I also gave one to my teacher because she loves cupcakes and this is classified as a cupcake imposter, she liked it enough to ask me for the recipe. With that said, I think these are best eaten the day of baking.

Chocolate Glazed Baked Doughnut Muffins
Recipe from Joy the Baker who adapted it slightly from Doughnuts
Recipe adjusted by me to make 12 doughnut muffins
makes 12 doughnut muffins




Please note: Because of my wacky adjustments, I used a scale to measure everything out and some ingredients were not measured out exactly as required... I bet you'll be laughing after you see how I adjusted the ingredients. :D

New York Style Coffee Cake

Last month, I bought a huge container of sour cream. I wanted to make Honey Bee Sweet's marble cake and to attempt making many more desserts that required sour cream. With that container of sour cream I was able to make 1 batch of scones, 1 marble cake, 1 sour cream pound cake, 1 New York style coffee cake and 1 batch of chocolate glazed donut muffins. I was halfway through the container of sour cream when I didn't know what else to make. I went on google reader and found this recipe that used a bunch of sour cream. Right then and there, I decided that I would make this cake.

The cake was pretty simple. The only problem I ran into while making this cake was I ran out of eggs. A few steps into the cake making, I looked in my fridge and discovered that we only had one egg left! Luckily, my aunt and uncle live only a few blocks away, so I quickly called and asked if I could have some eggs. My grandma answered the phone and said, "Come on over." I rode my bike there, got the eggs, returned home and promptly started continuing my cake mixing. Problem solved!

I didn't have a 9x13 glass pan so I used a 8x12 glass pan. I chose to decrease the topping by 25%. Boy am I glad I did that! When the cake was baking, it rose; if I had made the full amount of topping, my cake would have spilled over. That would have been a terrible disaster... Now it's time for the recipe.

Thanks to Karly from Buns In My Oven for sharing this recipe!


New York Style Coffee Cake
Very lightly adapted from Buns In My Oven who got the recipe from Baked Explorations
(I changed the proportion of the crumb topping and the cake. I also slightly decreased the amount of sugar in the cake.)

Cheesecake Brownie

I invited my little cousin J to bake with me yesterday. 12/23/10 After oscillating between several different recipes, I decided that we should make cheesecake brownies together. I found the recipe on Bun In My Oven, who got it from David Lebovitz. It took us forever to melt the butter and chocolate, but luckily, the rest of the steps were a breeze.

This is the 2nd time that I have used a David Lebovitz recipe; I like his chocolate and cheesecake recipes a lot. These brownies are just as good as his black bottom cupcakes. The brownies were a bit too sweet for me, but I thought that they went together very well with the cream cheese. The rich filling melded very nicely with the chocolaty brownie.

My brother rated it a 9.6. The .4 was taken off because of the not crunchy enough sides. I always ask my brother for a rating after he tastes the baked goods. :) A 9 or above is definitely a good score.

Cheesecake Brownies
Slightly adapted from David Lebovitz's recipe

Sugar Cookies

I've only eaten sugar cookies a few times in my life and the few times I've eaten them were when my friend A. made them.

On Club Day, a club fundraiser event at my school, my friend who is in charge of book club had a bake sale. The cookies included cc cookies and sugar cookies. After lunch, which was when the sale took place, there were still some leftover cookies. I didn't buy any cookies until after school when I saw my friend again. She offered me some cookies and I couldn't resist and bought them. I was so hungry after school that I ate 3 cookies all by myself while waiting for my mom to pick me up from school. I felt terrible....after getting the recipe from my friend, I found out that each cookie had 150 calories and a whole bunch of sugar (obviously). Oh well, what's done is done. So here is the recipe for the addicting cookies, enjoy!

I made these for my dad's coworkers because he was returning to work after taking a short vacation. I started preparing them at around 9 pm and chilled them for a few hours before finishing baking and packaging them at 2 am. Now that was the latest I have ever stayed up till to bake. 0_0 It was totally worth it though!

Sugar Cookies
Recipe from my friend A.

Cupcakes: Red Velvet and Chocolate

I revisited two cupcake recipes in the span of 24 hours and baked around 36 cupcakes for my Chinese school classmates. This Saturday was my brother's turn to bring snacks so I decided to prepare the snacks for him. Did I mention that I'm in the same class as my brother? It's actually not that bad having a class with him, although we do bicker sometimes. Also, you might be wondering if I feel stupid being in the same class as him, considering that I'm 3 yrs older than him... not really. We started learning Chinese at the same time, so he's been learning it for as long as I have. :p

I made red velvet cupcakes the night before Saturday Chinese school and chocolate cupcakes along with cream cheese frosting early in the next morning. The night before, I had to finish my 500 word Chinese essay about Christmas and various worksheets that I did not do during my winter break. I tried waking up early, but I didn't finish everything until 8:30ish. I was around 20 minutes late to Chinese school, oops!

Chocolate Chip Sour Cream Marble Cake

On the last day of my grandparents stay in the U.S. I baked a cake for them. I had wanted to bake this cake a week ago, but I didn't get to it until today.

Many other bloggers have made this marble cake too and all of them gave excellent reviews. Thank you Honey Bee Sweets for sharing this recipe! I will definitely be using this recipe again and again.

Like what Honey Bee Sweets said, the cake had a nice velvety texture to it. Right out of the oven, it had a nice, thin crisp exterior. Although the two batters weren't distinguishable when the cake is viewed from the top, they are inside the cake. Cutting through the cake, I could tell that it was going to be very yummy. When I brought a piece to school the next day to share with my best friend, she told me that she enjoyed it very much.

While making this cake, I had some doubts. The batter was surprisingly thick! I was beginning to think that I did something wrong while I was folding in the flour. At one point it was so difficult to even make one fold that the batter even resembled soft cookie dough. The batter was even harder than my sugar cookie dough before it got chilled. Regardless, I proceeded as the recipe told me to and it turned out fabulously. The one thing I forgot to do was actually give the batter a few swirls, so the cake wasn't all that marbly. I know, I know, there's no such word, but I can't think of any better word to describe it.
Chocolate Chip Sour Cream Marble Cake
Recipe from Honey Bee Sweets and adjustments from Bakericious 

Ingredients for a 10 cup bundt cake
Chocolate Paste
2.5 tbsp cocoa powder
2.5 tbsp hot water

Chocolate Chip Swirl Marble Bread

A while ago, I saw this recipe on Kitchen Corner, then I saw it again on Honey Bee Sweets and Happy Home Baking. I didn't make it before because I didn't have a pullman loaf tin, but now I do. I got a pullman loaf tin on Amazon for only $23! I think that it is a really good deal in the US because usually these loaf tins cost around $60 or more, what a rip off! Well, I'm really happy that I was able to get this loaf tin at $23 because now it went back up to $30. The first bread I made using this loaf tin was none other than then chocolate chip swirl marble bread.

The first time making this, I thought it was pretty successful. It took quite a while to proof the bread, but it was worth it. It turned out as soft as bakery bread and I was pretty happy with the results. Because the original recipe was made for a smaller loaf tin, I will increase the ingredients next time so I can get a taller loaf. Also, I will work on my dough shaping skills because my swirl was a mess. In fact, some slices didn't even have a swirl.

For the recipe, please refer to the links I posted above.
Chocolate Chip Swirl Marble Bread