Homemade Valentine Donuts!

Homemade Donuts

What an eventful 2 weeks!  Today is the finale to our Valentine's Day countdown.  I have thoroughly enjoyed everyday of it making crafts with the boys, taking them to do fun activities, baking and cooking with them and sharing God's LOVE with them.  To ensure the boys had the grand finale we were counting down to, I made a candy card for them.  I am so thankful Jeremy encouraged me to cut out the back of the boxes to empty the candies into different baggies, because the weight of this poster would have fallen to pieces!  I wrapped a poster board in wrapping paper, wrote our love note to the boys and hot glued the candy wrappers to the board.  Our card read like this ...

Sugar Babies, lets connect the Dots to see who scored 100 Grand when Mommy and Daddy had you two Goobers. In all the Milky Way God created the best Symphony when He created our "M&M's", our Mike and Ike (Cole dressed in your favorite GREEN!) and Mr. Goodbar, (Braydon always eating chocolate and peanuts) You both are our ... Whatchmacallit ... mmm ... our Hot Tamales, our Chunky monkeys, and at times our Milk Duds. Don't forget our favorite Junior Mints and Raisinets ... little versions of us! Best of all the Whooper size of LOVE that we have for you both isn't just Good & Plenty ... we have Mounds of LOVE for you now and will continue to LOVE you to Pieces!! Happy Valentine's Day!!

After their card was done, I wrapped up some small presents for the boys, set their table settings ...

filled their last day of mailbag treats ...

set out their Cupid Potato Head ...

and placed a donut pan in the center of the table as their clue of what breakfast would be!

All the boy's Valentine cards were set out ... and we waited for morning to come for the big day!!

The boys were so excited!  Cole is our enthusiastic one and to quote him, I cannot believe it!!

Cole opened the presents for the two of them --Braydon is only interested in what is inside, not unwrapping.

While Cole was busy with presents, Braydon was busy with the balloons.

Braydon LOVES PEZ dispensers and their little candies ...

As Braydon walked around with fist fulls of candy, Cole so carefully unwrapped their last present ...

Max Lucado's, You Are Mine ... the movie version of a book we had read earlier last week.

The boys spent the morning watching their new movie, chasing each other with balloons and playing with their new potato head.

Oh, and eating candy too!

After they had calmed down a bit, we started our baking activity of homemade donuts for breakfast!  Again, Braydon wasn't so interested until his PEZ were all gone.

While I set up the ingredients for our donuts, Cole went back to look at the candy card we made for them.  It was a classic moment earlier in the morning where Jeremy began reading them the card and realized that neither of the boys were in the room, they were running in circles with candy in their mouths and balloons in hand ... they weren't quite ready for a sweet moment ... but now Cole was. 

Because we emptied the candies from the packaging, Cole decided to shop the board like it was a vending machine, pointing to the candy he wanted in the hopes that we would dispense them from their hiding ziploc bags!  

Ok, now we were ready to start breakfast!!  The best part about these donuts are that they are easy to make and they are baked, not fried!!

Oil your donut pan well and preheat your oven to 425 degrees.  In a large bowl, mix together 2 c flour, 3/4 c sugar, 2 tsp baking powder, and 1/2 tsp nutmeg.  Then mix in 3/4 c milk, 2 eggs, and 2 tbsp melted butter.

Since we were making these Valentine's Day donuts, I added red food coloring so that when they baked, they would turn pink.

Fill the pan 3/4 full to make sure the donut shape forms without spilling over.

Bake for 9 minutes

This batch made 15 donuts.  After all the donuts were done baking, I set them to cool on a rack.  While the donuts cooled, I made the chocolate frosting.

In a medium bowl, combine 1/2 c chocolate chips, 2 tbsp butter and 2 tbsp corn syrup.  On half power, cook in the microwave for 1 minute.  Stir completely until everything is well combined. 

Then immediately drizzle the chocolate over your cooled donuts.  I placed a piece of wax paper under the donuts to make the clean up easier!

We topped the donuts with a red and pink sanding sugars and let them sit for about 15 minutes to allow the chocolate to set.

Braydon decided it was time to dig in- he grabbed his fork, climbed up the kitchen island and dug in!

Grammie gave us this hot chocolate mix the other day that turns pink when you mix together, so while the boys had their donuts, I made their hot chocolate into chocolate milk.

And yes, Braydon is now undressed because he sat up on the counter and planted himself right on top of a donut ... chocolate lips, full tummies and sugar coma toddlers then headed to the bath!