Making Donuts, part 1

First recipe: Fried Cake Donuts

My sister (the baker) actually made these pretty much on her own. She followed the recipe in the cookbook and made the dough the night before. I didn't bring any of my circle cookie cutters, so she just cut them into squares using the pizza cutter.

Here she is frying some:

And I totally forgot to take any pictures of the finished products...the square shape turned out a little funky but the cake fluffed up considerably more than I would have thought it would making them much closer to spheres than I thought they would be.

We dipped them in glaze right out of the pan and then they got eaten basically immediately. We frosted a couple with some left over fudge frosting from the night before, but I preferred them simply frosted.

My rating may be clouded by the raised donuts we made the next day (and you can read about in two weeks) but I'd give these a 3/5. I might not try them again, but you never know.

The cookbook

Evergreen Cabin

I grew up in a lot of different states, but the base camp for my family was always Nebraska. And I would say the actual camp we used as our base camp was Platte River State Park. It opened before I was born and we were going before I remember. It's one of those places you have foggy memories of as a child, possibly some of my first memories. I remember sitting on the curb in a parking spot waiting for someone. I remember watching my mom come out of the shower house and us making fun of her for something (wet hair? terry cloth romper?) and watching one of my older cousins playing tennis.

I've heard tons of stories to supplement my memory, like when my sister and aunts had a popcorn war instead of going to bed one night. I've also been back enough times to have my own real memories, like when we went out for two of my aunts' birthdays and brought Russel Stover hats for everyone to wear.

Now that I'm back living in Nebraska, I'd love to say I am going more often but recently I've been going to Mahoney State Park, 10 miles west of Platte. Mahoney is newer and has more amenities, like wifi and mini golf. Platte River is strictly cabins (or teepees) with no tent or RV camping. Both parks have paddle boats (but I've only been on them at Platte). Nebraska state parks are in a class of their own in my view.

The idea to go to Platte River came up around November and my aunt (did I mention I have 5 aunts? On my mom's side? Yeah, that's why so many of these tidbits start with "my aunt") and I decided we'd have a ladies' retreat at Platte River to sit around and play games and eat junk food and just relax. So we booked one of the biggest cabins they had for Jan 8-10th. Possibly forgetting how cold Nebraska can be in January. Good thing the cabin was heated beyond belief and had a bathroom. Some of Platte's cabins don't have bathrooms. Which is fine in the spring, summer, or fall, but not so great in the winter.

Anyways, the point of this post was a review of the cabin, mainly so next time we're trying to figure out what cabin we want we have some pictures and info to go off of.

Pictures first!

My awesome, not to scale, obviously, floorplan

Looking down the hallway towards the bedrooms

A little further back from the hallway,
table on the right

Bedroom with double bed

Bedroom with bunk beds

Bathroom, duh

Review:

4.5 stars

Would be better in the summer or fall when we could take advantage of the outdoor space (sorry for lack of outdoor photos). There were three tables outside, fire pit and grill. It was fairly secluded compared to other cabins, but only came with two parking spaces.

Would sleep 8, but the 5 of us filled it with all our stuff so 8 adults would have been tight.

Nice sized fridge, tiny stove. Microwave/toaster/coffee maker all included.

Double basin sink.

Living room seating for 3. Table fit 5 comfortable, 8 would be a squeeze (extra chairs were in the bedrooms as places to put your stuff)

Each bedroom also came with a tall, compact armoire with area for hanging stuff, one large drawer, and one large cubby at the bottom for storage.

Normally $115/night, rented for about $80 in the off season

Disney donuts

What: Chocolate Eclair

Where: France in EPCOT (Disney)

When: Monday, January 18th, 2016


Went to Florida. Still didn't get to any reviews of actual donut places in Florida. I should really get on that. I was too busy playing chickenfoot (stop right now and look it up, then order some dominoes). But we did get some free passes to EPCOT (thanks to my brother-in-law) so I'm counting this as my Florida donut review.

If you've never been to Disney, you can go if you want. But you don't have to. It's nice when it's free. The food still isn't though. And since you only have Disney options for food while you're at the park, they aren't striving to really be that great. Maybe the $30/plate sit down restaurants are, but we ain't got time for that.

In France (wait, have you ever been to EPCOT? I should explain, they have some ride and theme park stuff at the front, but then there is a lake at the back with a ton of country themed exhibits/areas around it, one of them being France. There is also Canada and Germany and Mexico and Japan and China and some other's I'm probably forgetting. Italy). Anyways, back in France we got a bunch of desserts and coffee and it was probably the best food of the day. Except the eclair. The eclair was just eh. Kind of dry. Not a lot of flavor in the chocolate filling. I'd say 2/5 and would get something else next time. The chocolate pudding and creme brule on the other hand were both quite yummy.

Lamar's

What: Maple Long John

When: Monday, December 7th, 2015

Where: 16th & Q, Lincoln NE

I've had a decent amount of Lamar's donuts at this point. There are the local chain around Lincoln. Sometimes they're good, sometimes they're bad. They annoy  me the most with their lack of maple donuts most days, but my husband found this one for me. He was up early after dropping me off at school and decided to swing by the downtown Lamar's. And for once, they had a maple!

The filling was over the top. There was so much in it I was having to scrap it out. Donut filling is hard. I never knew this, but they don't make a cavity ahead of time for the filling. They just shove the pastry bag in to the warm donut and fill the void created by the fluffy dough. This one was bursting with white, sugary sweet filling. I couldn't eat the whole thing in one sitting (which is probably better since the donut itself was quite large) so it got put back away and I reluctantly finished it later. I'd give it a 2/5. Not the worst thing I've ever had, and fairly tasty, just sooooooo much filling.

District Doughnut

This was almost my first DC review. But it's just a bunch of pictures from a cool looking donut place in DC. I guess I will have to try it out when I'm out there in March and write a real review.

This may be my favorite doughnut display case.

Seriously, were they good? What kinds did they try? I HAVE NO IDEA!

Not sure how I feel about this. Does the whole world need to see me shoving a doughnut into my mouth? Oh wait, I write a blog about doughnuts. You've probably already seen my #doughface

So fancy!

I especially like that you can see my friend and his girlfriend in this photo, they were so nice to go and try the donuts and send me some pictures BUT NOT TELL ME HOW THEY WERE!

More Donut art

I feel like this saying could also mean the whole donut trend. Hope it doesn't go the way of the cupcake trend anytime soon! I'm still loving all the crazy donut places popping up everywhere!

Happy 2016!

A sweet Christmas present from my bff. Taking it to school to always make me hungry at my desk.