Doughnuts and Ice Cream

Having company in town is the perfect excuse for trying new foods.  So with my brother Chris visiting for the weekend, we took a trip to Sur La Table on Saturday afternoon and ended up with a couple of Wilton doughnut baking pans (regular and mini-sized) for making cake doughnuts and then found a Cuisinart ice cream maker on clearance, which also does sorbet and frozen yogurt.

On Sunday morning Mark baked up some chocolate, vanilla, and nutmeg doughnuts and glazed them with either chocolate or regular sugar glazes.  Taylor was so excited about the mini doughnuts and instructed us that those were only hers.  Outside of french toast, this may be her new favorite breakfast.  Not surprising considering the sugar content.  The recipe that came with the pans called for cake flour, which is a lighter flour for fluffier results.  It was our first experience with cake flour, but I think we'll try a different recipe next time that uses regular flour.  The doughnuts were tasty, but not as good as our favorite local doughnut place.

 

Then for an post-lunch dessert, we mixed up some pistacio ice cream.  Yum!  We had originally planned on peach or chocolate, but both of those required an additional 2 hr prep time and we wanted the ice cream to be set before Chris had to catch his flight back to CA.  The ice cream had a great flavor, though it took a bit longer to firm up in the freezer than expected.  At least Chris got to try a couple of soupy bowlfuls before we went to the airport.  It's solid now and Taylor enjoyed sharing a big bowl of it with me tonight.  I'm excited to try out the other flavors when we get back from vacation.  I guess we'll just have to make peach pie in the next couple of days to use up all the extra peaches we bought for the ice cream.  Mmmmm.  Can't say I mind at all.