Category: Dessert

The girls decided to do classic plain donuts, and also chocolate donuts. After they’d all gotten a chance to make some, Kevin took over making the donuts, while the girls worked on glazes.

After we got the beignet batter ready and set it to rising, we switched to mini-donuts. I’d gotten Kavi a mini donut maker for her birthday, and I pretty much just talked the girls through a couple of the recipes in there — they could do it all themselves. It’s really more like waffles than donuts, in some sense, but they were very happy with the results. And they learned how to use a pastry bag, so that’s good.

Donuts! Initially, actually, we worked on beignets; she really likes them, so was excited to learn how to make them. We made a yeast dough, let it rise, punched it down, rolled it out, cut it into squares, deep-fried the squares, and shook powdered sugar over. (And a drizzle of chocolate on a few.)

All the girls got to try deep-frying, so it was satisfying teaching them something useful.

Delicious little balls of sesame seeds + coconut + date + jaggery — great as a dessert, at tea time, or just a nibble to power you through your day. Traditionally in Jaffna, these were often made with just sesame seeds and jaggery, perhaps with a little rice flour / water as a binder, but I find them much tastier with the addition of coconut and dates.

1 c. jaggery or dark brown sugar

1. Toast sesame seeds and coconut on medium-low heat, stirring, until the coconut turns light tan. Don’t toast for too long, or the sesame seeds will become bitter.

2. Let cool, then pound all the ingredients together or combine in food processor until you can form the mixture into balls that hold together. You may need to adjust the amount of dates (Medjool dates tend to be moister), and/or add a little water.

3. Shape into small balls, squeezing mixture together firmly. Enjoy!

For most recipes, I’d recommend fresh coconut or rehydrating desiccated, and you certainly can, but these will actually keep longer if you skip the rehydrating phase.

Being a grown-up sometimes means you decide it’s ice cream sundae night for no particular reason. Kevin opted out, but the kids were thrilled. Base of strawberry ice cream (Breyer’s was not strawberry enough for Kavi and my taste, though — recs for more strawberry strawberry ice cream welcome):

• I went for banana, strawberry, raspberry, and dark Callebaut chocolate chips

• Kavi wanted just loads of fresh strawberries + Callebaut ruby chocolate chips (she says it’s really good)

• Anand had his with my suggested banana + milk toffee crumble combo, which is an inspired combination, if I do say so myself; we both agreed his would have been even better with a great vanilla bean ice cream; clearly I should always have great vanilla bean ice cream in the freezer.

Nordicware is so good. It lets me make four cakes from a single recipe, which is perfect in this case because I’m keeping one, then freezing and shipping three to Interstellar tier Patreon recipients.

But generally, I think this is a nice option for when I feel like making a cake, but don’t want an entire cake sitting around for a while — I can wrap and freeze three of them, to pull out when we feel like cake. Bake once a month, cake at every Sunday dinner?

(Remember to use something like Baker’s Joy to make prep easy!)

The delicate flavor of redbud syrup lends moist deliciousness to this classic pound cake. A little hint of ginger adds complexity, and a tangy lemon icing perfectly complements the slight floral tang of the redbud blossoms.

redbud blossoms for decorating

3/4 c. confectioner’s sugar

1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

2. Grease and flour a 10-inch bundt pan (or as in this case, four smaller bundt pans). (Baker’s Joy spray makes this easy.)

3. In a large bowl, sift together flour, ground ginger, baking powder, baking soda, salt. Set aside.

4. Beat butter in a separate bowl until light and creamy (about two minutes). Gradually add sugar until the mixture is light in color and texture (about three minutes), scraping down sides of the bowl if needed. Beat in one egg at a time.

5. At low speed, add flour mixture a cup or so at a time, alternating with the sour cream (or Greek yogurt).

6. Remove half of batter to prepared pan. Add a little pink food coloring to remaining batter and stir to combine. Spoon remaining batter into pan and swirl with a skewer or chopstick.

7. Bake the cake until a toothpick comes out clean (50-55 minutes for a regular bundt pan; reduce time for smaller cakes).

8. Cool in the pan on a rack for 10 minutes, then invert onto rack, with a baking sheet beneath to catch drippings. (A sheet of parchment paper under the rack makes clean-up easy.)

9. Poke holes in cake and slowly drizzle redbud syrup over the warm cake(s). Let soak in before re-applying.

10. While cake is cooling, make lemon icing — combine lemon juice and confectioner’s sugar.

11. When cake is completely cool, drizzle lemon icing over the top (or alternately, dust with confectioner’s sugar), and decorate with fresh redbud blossoms.

Well, that was a little frustrating. I tried making two different versions of Sri Lankan sesame seed balls, hoping to include one in Vegan Serendib, and I’m afraid I didn’t like either one. They’re both Jaffna recipes, Ella Urundai (sesame fudge) and Sesame Seed Pori Ma, and both made with roasted sesame seeds, rice floor, and jaggery.

They came out looking fine (though I did need to add a little sesame oil to help them bind together). But I just don’t like the taste — it has an edge of bitterness, and the roasted rice flour is kind of grainy even after binding with the flour and jaggery.

It might’ve worked better if I’d done a jaggery syrup, and combined in that? I’m not sure. But I think I’m going to try a different approach if I do this again — there are Sinhalese recipes for sesame balls made with jaggery and coconut — no rice flour, and that sounds better. I’ve also seen variations adding in Medjool dates, which sounds yum. (I’m not positive I actually like sesame candy, though, which might be the real problem.)

Alas. Sometimes, experiments don’t work out. We still learn things. Science!