Happy birthday to me: Copycat Gourdough's donuts! (+gluten-free version!)

Last week was my birthday (and my baby's first birthday!). For my birthday, I decided I wanted food. My husband got me some gourmet cheeses, and we made some fake Gourdough's donuts!

If you're not familiar with Gourdough's, brace yourself. These gourmet donut creations from an Austin, TX, food truck are nothing short of amazing. Happily, a group of food bloggers was treated to dozens of Gourdough's to create homemade versions. I started preparations later in the day than I wanted to (and I'd already had pleeeeenty of sugar), so I went for the easy route and narrowed down my choices to two:

 The "Flying Pig"

Candied bacon and maple glaze

Copycat recipe from The Novice Chef

"The Carney"

Cream cheese frosting, caramel apple pie filling, peanuts and caramel syrup

Copycat recipe from Shugary Sweets

To make them even easier, I bought jumbo pop-tube biscuits. I used a small cylinder (about 1" in diameter) to cut out the middles on some of them, and left others whole to deep fry them.

They fry pretty quickly (though the yellow foam they make is kind of disconcerting . . . ). Within a couple minutes, our donuts were ready for assembly! The only other things we really had to make were the maple glaze and the candied bacon.

I have to admit: I've never tried maple/bacon anything. I like both of them, but I've been too scared to try them together. And of course they were amazing! The mix of salty, smoky and sweet—and of course fried dough—was amazing. Plus, these come together so fast, they're dangerous!


Gluten-free version!
We had some gluten-free pie dough in the fridge, so I kneaded and rolled that to make some flat donuts, which I fried (not in the same oil as the other donuts!). Since my husband was also off eggs and dairy, we were sure to use dairy-free frosting and omit the caramel syrup, which contained dairy. The maple glaze could be made with nut milk, too!

How do you celebrate?

Liege-style caramel apple waffles

Years ago, I saw an episode of Rachael Ray's 30-minute meals where she made "Liége-style" waffles (pronounced lyehzh). Although they're named after the Belgian city and served all over the country, these are not to be confused with Belgian waffles!

Liége waffles have Belgian pearl sugar mixed the yeasted, buttery dough. The chunks of sugar melt and caramelize. Belgian pearl sugar being hard to come by on this side of the Atlantic, Rachael recommended using cube sugar that you've roughly crushed. I made these waffles a couple times, but cleaning up the iron afterwards was a pain!

Fast-forward seven years, and my family found a local food truck, Waffle Love. We finally got to try more authentic Liége waffles. And they were A. MAZE. ING.

So for Christmas, my husband got me a rotating waffle iron and two pounds of imported Belgian pearl sugar. And for his birthday, my son requested those special waffles, so my husband looked up a real recipe of the buttery, yeasted-dough goodness. We picked the Liége "sugar" waffles recipe from The Whipped Blog, which actually comes from this Liége waffle squidoo.

This is not a 30-minute meal.

After an hour, maybe more, the dough was finally ready. And it really is more of a dough than a batter, and like any good homemade waffle, it contains two sticks of melted butter. My dough was a little too wet to make 2" balls, so I scooped just over 1/4 cup into the iron. The new circular iron wasn't exactly a good fit: the quarter-circles weren't really big enough. But I could fit one waffle on each half (as opposed to one 4" waffle prepared on a square iron). But no matter!

Once they were finally cooking, I encountered a new problem: what to put on top. Although the pearl sugar is the only sweetener, Liége waffles are so sweet that you really don't need syrup. At our beloved waffle truck, they offer such amazing toppings as Nutella, fresh strawberries, fresh raspberries, fresh peaches, Biscoff spread, bananas and whipped cream.

We had none of that. This is really something we should've thought about before they came out of the iron. Or went in.

We quickly scanned our day-before-grocery-shopping kitchen and pantry and fridge. Finally, inspiration struck. I diced up an apple and sprinkled it with cinnamon & sugar, dug out some Reddi-Whip and caramel ice cream sauce (not as good as this caramel sauce!), and voila, as they'd say in Liége.

Caramel apple Liége waffles

I'm not sure what kind of waffle maker the testers used, but on mine, they did best for 3:30 at level 4.5 ish. At level 3, the sugar didn't melt enough and the waffle was kinda spongey.

And what's the verdict over the 30-minute version? These are so much better! However, I'm not sure the pearl sugar is worth the expense vs crushing your own sugar cubes.

But cleaning the iron? Still a pain.

Recipe (as I made it)

• 1 (1/4 ounce) package yeast (2 1/4 tsp active dry yeast)
• 1/3 cup lukewarm water (about 105 degF - too hot will kill the yeast)
• 1 1/2 tablespoons granulated white sugar
• 1/8 teaspoon salt
• 2 cups flour
• 3 eggs
• 1 cup melted butter
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• 3/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon (optional)
• 1 cup Belgian pearl sugar*

Mix the yeast, water and sugar in a small bowl and let it develop or sit for 15 minutes.

Place the flour in a separate mixing bowl and make a well in the center of the flour (I used the smaller bowl on my stand mixer). Sprinkle with salt.

Pour the yeast mixture into the well and mix until blended on medium speed. It will be VERY dry--in fact, it's like pie crust dough before you add the water.

Add the eggs (one at a time), melted butter a bit at a time, and the vanilla and cinnamon. Be sure to mix well after each addition to the batter. Keep in mind the batter will be thick and VERY sticky.

Remove the bowl from the mixer and let the dough rest until it doubles in volume inside the bowl.

Gently fold in the pearl sugar and let the dough rest for 15 more minutes.

While the dough is resting, heat the waffle iron.

Drop about 1/4 cup of dough into the center of the waffle iron. Waffles will take 3 to 5 minutes to bake. Mine were best for about 3:30 minutes on level 4.5 (out of ten).

Recipe makes 8 - 10 waffles.

Apple braid: healthy makeover!

Last fall, I made a tasty apple braid. This fall, I decided to see if I could give the original recipe a healthy makeover.

It was an all-day endeavor, and there were tears shed. Literally. Actual tears.

The healthy makeover!

For the filling:

• 3 medium Granny Smith apples, peeled, cored and cut into slices.
• 3 Tablespoons Xylitol
• 1 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 2 tsp lemon juice

For the 100% whole wheat bread, from Heavenly Homemakers--This makes two loaves, so either half the recipe or make one loaf of bread in addition to the apple braid.

• 6 cups (give or take) whole wheat flour, divided
• 1 ¾ cups warm water, divided
• 1/3 cup honey
• 1 package active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoon)
• 1 teaspoon sea salt
• 3 Tablespoons melted butter

For the drizzle:

• 1 tbsp Agave Nectar
• tiny dash imitation vanilla

Yep, there's no actual sugar in this recipe!

Begin the bread first, following Heavenly Homemakers' recipe through the first rise. In the last 15 minutes of the first rise, make the filling by combining the filling ingredients in a bowl. 

After the first rise is finished, preheat the oven to 350. Roll out half this amount of dough and cut the outer thirds in ribbons (being careful to keep them even because you don't want to end up with too many ribbons on either side).

Remember that whole wheat dough is that it generally doesn't have as much stretch as white bread dough, so the ribbons might need to be extra long to fit over the filling.

Lay the filling down the middle of the bread and overlap the ribbons to form the braid, pinching the dough in place. Since my dough was less elastic than the last time I made it, I actually just pinched them together in the middle. I tried to give this a chance for a second rise . . . didn't happen. It also didn't happen for the other loaf of bread I made from this dough. I'm VERY frustrated, after grinding my own freaking wheat, using yeast I just opened last month, spending four hours making the dough and six MORE hours trying to get it to rise the second time. . . .

Ahem. Anyway.

Bake the apple braid at 350 F for about 25 minutes or until golden brown.

Combine the drizzle ingredients, warm slightly and drizzle over the cooling braid. Cut into 10 slices.

So, how did the healthy makeover go?

As you can see, the analysis by CalorieCount.com shows there's almost no difference between the before and after in raw nutrition data. Calories, fat, saturated fat, cholesterol, sodium--it's all very close. However, the reduced sugars and especially the whole grains earned the after version a nutrition grade of B+, as opposed to C+, making this a dessert you don't have to feel too guilty about.

And most importantly, how did it taste?

I HAVE NO IDEA. 

Again, I'm super frustrated about this. I brought this to my friend's house, and my friends had pieces (and seemed to like them), but I was too full to eat any. So I brought it home and put it in the kitchen.

The same room as a bunch of bananas a neighbor gave us that afternoon.

The bananas were infested with fruit flies which took over my apple braid which I seriously spent six and a half hours making.

Wayward rage.

Ahem. Anyway.

So, if you try this, let me know how it tastes! I don't think I have six and a half hours to go through all this grief again any time soon.

Fall dessert: apple braid

When Jasmine was visiting over the Fourth of July, we made a patriotic apple pie using her recipe. Not all of our apple filling fit in the pie crust, so I stuck the extra 2 cups or so in the freezer. That very night, I repinned a fantastic way to use up my extra filling, and with apples in season, it makes a great late summer/early fall treat.

This delicious apple braid recipe comes from a guest post on Eat, Live, Run by Rachael of La Fuji Mama. It's basically bread wrapped around apple pie filling (which, of course, I just used my leftover apples for) in a beautiful braid pattern. To make the braid, you actually cut the sides of the bread in strips (I used a pizza cutter):

Then you put the apples down the middle and wrap the strips over them, alternating sides and pinching to secure. Roll and pinch the ends (mine came undone a bit anyway).

One tip as you do this: count the number of strips you cut on each side. I ended up with 1-2 more strips on one side, and had to "fuse" two strips together so I wouldn't end up with too many. You might even use a ruler to make them all straight and perfect and even. Then just bake and glaze!

What desserts are you looking forward to this fall? And don't you want a Pinterest invite?