Tastykakes

What: Tastykake Rich Chocolate Frosted Mini Donut

When: blocked the date from my memory

Where: My kitchen?

It's been a busy month. I totally forgot to start my receipt envelope for Christmas 2015 till maybe the 22nd. Hope everyone likes their gifts! No returns! Hahahaha.

Anyways, at one point I grabbed some Tastykakes at the grocery store. Tastykakes are like a regional form of Hostess or Little Debbie, normally only found in the northeast. My father-in-law is from Pennsylvania, so they remind him of home and he loves them. My husband kind of loves them, from the family connection. I ate my share in college (for some reason we had Tastykakes for breakfast on almost all of our band trips...) and am kind of over them.

But you gotta review all kinds of donuts if you review donuts, right?? Right. So I bought a pack. And ate half a donut. And took a picture and then passed them along to my husband to finish. Dry. Almost as dry as that vegan cookie I tried in the fall. No flavor. Can I give a negative score? This may be a -2/5. Next!

Great Western Bank

This elicited a lot of questions from my husband and I. What kind of donuts do you love? Do you give them out to customers?  Are they the "Free Present" for opening an account with you?

Best Western at Hunt's Landing

What: Cake donut, cinnamon sugar donut

Where: Best Western at Hunt's Landing, Matamoras, Pennsylvania

When: Friday, November 27th, 2015

As part of our crazy family holiday, we drove to see my brother, sister in law, and nephew and niece from Philadelphia. Five of us in one car, after eating a full Thanksgiving dinner and various desserts. But we made it, and I slept in the next morning. For sure. So I convinced the hubby to go get me the free breakfast to go so I didn't have to get up too early. He brought back some excellent eggs and potatoes, and some random donuts. 

Sometimes you have to eat the bad donuts to appreciate the good. These were definitely the bad. Once you have been writing a donut blog for as long as I have, I can definitely pass on some bad baked goods at this point and not even worry about temptation. I would give these 1/5, because there were edible. Just not enjoyable.

Making Donuts!

One of the ladies in my small group gave me a surprise present last week and I am so pumped about it. I just told the hubby that one of my resolutions for next year will be to try to make something out of the cookbook once a month. Not tooooo often, but I figured you guys would like to hear about the attempts and the hubby would like to eat the attempts. 

I've flipped through it and love how it is set up. The beginning of the book is a handful of different donut recipes, including ones that you fry, ones that you bake, and ones that you can use those tiny novelty donut fryers. Then there are some basic frosting and glaze recipes, and then they get into all the fun stuff you can do with the basic recipes. The book ends with a section on making masterpieces out of either homemade or store bought donuts.

Two of my favorite masterpieces are the step by step directions to making a tiered donut cake and the pinata cake. Sadly, we just took all the cake pedestals to my sister to use at her bakery, so I will have to figure out how to make it look awesome without a real pedestal. I will update you in January with my first attempt!

Gleaner's

What: Apple Cider Donut

Where: Gleaner's, Italian Market, Philadelphia PA

When: Wednesday, November 25th, 2015

If you're paying attention, you may be slightly confused since this is my second apple cider review for the same day. I did have two different apple cider donuts on the same day. Making up for lost time you could say. 

This one was definitely a cake donut, not the hybrid that the gluten free one was. The flavor was good, even after a couple days because we may have forgot about it in my purse. Hey, holidays in my family tend to be a little crazy. The hubby says he'd buy it again. So based on that, let's say 3.5/5.

Party Ball

For our one year anniversary this year, one of my husband's aunts got us the most adorable baby grill ever. I had seen her use one at the family July 4th bbq and it was just such a nice portable size. And she used instant light charcoal, which I had never used before. This post may end up focusing more on the instant light charcoal.



But first, the grill. Her's was a baby blue. She got us a classic black one. The legs fold up so it's fairly portable, but the handle is semi-permanent, which is my one grip with it so far. Once you screw the handle on, the lid no longer fits in with the bottom and it doesn't slide back into it's box. But otherwise, it's a great mini grill.

(Link for Target, I surprisingly did not find it on Amazon)

We set it up super fast before the Nebraska game we went to, so we didn't put everything together, or read the directions. Which means I didn't realize it had a removable dish/bowl to put the charcoal in for easy clean up. Or put the handle on the grill surface to move that easily. But I did get the vents on the bottom and the lid, and the handle on. The legs came already on.



Another nice feature was the clasps that connected the lid to the bottom for when we had to move the grill when it was time to go into the game. One not so nice feature is the height, if used on the ground it is not the easiest to cook on without hurting your back. But putting it on a picnic table at a camp ground takes care of this issue handily.

And back to the charcoal. This could almost be it's own entry, but I don't think anyone needs to read an entire post about charcoal. So I'll keep it brief: There are few things worth the extra money in my book (living the frugal life) but instant light charcoal is now on that list. It is definitely worth the extra money to not fight with lighter fluid and matches and blowing on the coals, and standing around waiting for them to turn white. We will now only buy instant light and our marriage will be stronger because of it. It's that awesome.

Dottie's Donuts

What: Apple Cider

Where: Grindcore Coffee, 4th and Cross, Philadelphia, PA

When: Wednesday, November 25th, 2015

This year I made it to Grindcore before they were sold out of Dottie's Donuts. I was excited to see what they had to offer, but I also got to experience the price first hand instead of my sisters' buying them for us. $3.50 a donut. Just for a special occasion, definitely not an every day purchase. 

I selected the apple cider, since, you know, fall. It was pretty good, so light and fluffy. For those of you in the know, Dottie's Donuts are vegan. This one was an interesting hyrbid of a raised donut and a cake donut. It was also the only apple cider donut I've gotten that was frosted. The apple flavor was excellent and the moisture was right on. I'd give it a 4/5, only losing points for price. 

Personal donut art

For Christmas last year I got a picture frame from my aunt that said "Hello Beautiful" at the bottom. It was green, which was awesome. But I didn't know if I should put a picture of myself in it? Maybe a wedding photo? My best friend? I was so unsure, the frame set empty for almost an entire year. Until Saturday. I finally figured it out, I'd put a scenery photo from the wedding in it. The lake was gorgeous, I'm sure I had a picture of it somewhere. So I started going through a pile of wedding photos and found something even better.

The donuts my sister made for us at the wedding. Homemade boston creme donuts. My father in law still talks about these donuts. They totally deserve "Hello Beautiful." And once they were in the frame, and I had opened and closed it 5 more times to get the same piece of dust off the mat after it kept sticking to a different part of the mat, I realized it would look perfect over my donut painting from June! We're getting quite the gallery going in our kitchen :-)