After an exciting fall, I am going home.
You see, I currently (for the next 19 days) live in central Illinois but I am about to make a big change. Almost a year and a half after moving here to Champaign, I am moving back to Chicago.
I accomplished a lot while living here (you did see the redesigns I did for the217, wpgu & buzz magazine, right?).
I learned a lot while living here. (Videos? Candy making? Pie crust?).
I struggled a lot while living here. My family and closest friends were all two and a half hours away. I missed seeing Blondie every weekend. I missed making lunch plans with my mom (per the usual arrangement 🙂 ). I was very far away from everything I loved. And I knew it. So, I traveled. 3 weekends a month, on average. I was exhausted.
When I moved to Champaign, I knew it wasn’t a forever move. But I thought I would be here a bit longer than I was.
Why am I leaving?
I got a job at a design firm in the city and I was floored by their enthusiasm for me and my work. I am so excited to get started, but I know that leaving will be bittersweet.
I know I will miss my awesome boss. And those crazy stories that the students who work for me tell. I am going to miss seeing all the amazing projects that my students are working on. I am going to miss our 3pm coffee runs. I am going to miss the family that I have in the office.
But, I will have better & easier access to gluten free foods because I will be in a better market. (And I am sad about the gluten free cupcake shop that we didn’t end up opening in the lobby of the office).
I will have my mom there for lunches and manicures and Blondie will be around to make sure the food tastes good more often.
Oh, you wanted food?
This post definitely has a recipe. Because I hate packing. It might be worse than folding laundry (my least favorite chore) So, Sunday, I made 3 pots of soup to use up canned goods from my cabinet and then I made some doughnuts. But only because I needed to make something that involved flour and sugar so you wouldn’t all forget about me!
Yeasty, fried, glazed doughnuts. Delicious doughnuts that Blondie and I ate while waiting on laundry and soup. They were dunked in a spicy glaze because the caramel frosting that I started burned. The lesson, don’t pack stuff in a different room and forget that you are caramelizing sweetened condensed milk. Or you will have burnt milk. And that is just a beast to clean up. Especially if you forgot about it for about 20 minutes while frantically packing.
- Doughnuts
- 160 ml (2/3 cup) milk (I used Almond Milk), warmed
- 35 grams (3 tablespoons) sugar
- 250 grams (2 cups +1 tablespoon) all-purpose gluten free flour*
- 7 grams (1 t) active dry yeast
- 40 grams (2.5 T) butter or EarthBalance, softened
- 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
- Pinch salt
- Glaze
- cup milk
- 3 star anise
- 3 green cardamom pods
- 1 tablespoon loose black tea leaves
- 2 tablespoons chopped crystallized ginger
- 225 grams (1 cup) powdered sugar
- In a small bowl combine warm milk, a teaspoon of your sugar, a tablespoon of your flour and your yeast. Let sit for about 15 minutes – the mixture should have produced a decent amount of foam.
- In the bowl of a stand mixer combine the remaining flour, sugar, butter, vanilla and salt.
- Add in the yeast mixer and mix to combine. Once combined, turn the mixer speed to low-medium (mine was on 3) and let the dough “knead” for about 10 minutes. The paddle attachment for your mixer will work just fine. You are adding some structure in the form of air, but since we are not producing gluten, we are just giving lightness and flavor to our dough.
- Watch the dough, if it is impossibly sticky add a little more flour a teaspoon at a time. I added about a teaspoon of extra flour. A little sticky is ok, but you don’t want incredibly sticky dough.
- After 10 minutes, place the dough in a greased bowl in a warm spot (my microwave is the warmest spot in my kitchen). Cover with plastic wrap.
- Let the dough raise for 45 mins-1 hour. It should have just about doubled in size.
- Roll out the dough to ½” thickness and cut it into small circles. If the dough is really sticky, dust it with a little flour. (I used a small cup and they were about 2.5” in diameter.) Then, cut a smaller hole in the center. (I used an inverted pastry tip).
- Place the doughnuts onto a greased baking sheet. Keep re-rolling the dough until you use it all up. (I got 16 mini-doughnuts from this recipe).
- Let them rise for another 60 minutes.
- When your doughnuts have about 15 minutes of raising time left, simmer the milk and spices over low heat in a small saucepan. Stir occasionally, but keep on the heat until the doughnuts have all been fried. You want to get as much flavor infused in the milk as possible.
- With about 10 minutes of rising time left, heat 1 quart of oil in a big, deep pot (I used my 5 quart dutch oven). You want it to be about 370 degrees. If you don’t have a thermometer, use a bamboo skewer. When you stick it in the oil, you should see small bubbles form around it. If you don’t see bubbles, the oil isn’t hot enough yet.
- Fry the doughnuts for about a minute on each side. You want them to turn a nice golden color.
- Set on a cooling rack that is positioned over a cookie sheet to catch the grease.
- Strain your warm milk-tea-spice mixture into a medium mixing bowl. Whisk in the powdered sugar. Keep whisking til you have a smooth glaze.
- Once all the doughnuts are fried and are cool enough to touch, dip them into the glaze. Return the doughnuts to the cooling rack to set.
Since MammaCakes sent me some spices, I made a chai-spiced almond milk glaze. These doughnuts are a little more dense than Krispy Kremes but are more flavorful than the doughnuts I remember from Dunkin. They truly were a Sunday treat.
They look yummy! Good luck with your move. You will be happier back with your family again. Keep posting those recipes!
Thanks! They were super delicious 🙂
And, I can’t wait to be back with my family, I wish I was moving tomorrow!