Blondies and Little Johns

 Blondies

So my 4 1/2 year old and I were going about our day yesterday and we decided that I should make some new treats for the house (and blog!) It took him all day to decide what he wanted, which he expressed by simply saying "Chocolate!" So, to limit the chocolate intake, but still give him what he asked for I made the blondies you see above. Admittedly this image is a bit of an extreme close up, but that's just because it was that awesome. 

Blondies are a brownie like cookie which were originally created when someone decided to use brown sugar instead of regular granulated sugar in their recipe. The bars taste something like a butterscotch brownie with tiny morsels of chocolate every now and then. They are buttery and chewy and I bet if you put one in a bowl with a smattering of milk it would be simply divine. I remember my mother doing this with day old cake in the morning. I never tried this as a kid that I remember, and I always teased her about it, but I absolutely did this very thing this morning with my blondie. And it was oh so worth it.

My 4 1/2 year old requires much more convincing when it comes to homemade foods other than my pastries. I always have to jump through a hoop or two to get him to eat anything. Some day I'll tell you about feeding him waffles. It requires a precision that only a mom could have the patience for. At any rate in order to get him to agree to taste the blondies I had to hide it.

 

Under ice cream. Sad but true. I hid a generous portion under a big scoop full of Breyer's Vanilla. He initially questioned my motives. Giving me that "Mom's giving me ice cream without me asking? There must be medicine in it..." look.  I assured him that this is just how you eat a blondie. And to try it. So he ate the ice cream. I practically had to beg him to eat the blondie. He finally caved and tried a tiny bite. We'll call it a morsel. He promptly put down his fork and claimed it was 'yucky'. Figures. He usually tells us everything I make is yucky, and that he'd rather have chicken nuggets. So I wasn't surprised. I left it alone and began clean up. When I came back all the chocolate chips had been picked out. To each their own I guess! 

The good news is that the rest of the family really enjoyed these and half the pan is gone already. I had planned not to try these since my recipe refers to the 'brownie-like qualities' more than once in the description. I have a real problem with brownies. Not a "ew I don't care for these" more of a I can't stop stuffing my face problem. I could easily make an entire pan of brownies disappear before sunset. Nuts, no nuts, doesn't matter. I always glom off of Ben Franklin and say "Brownies are proof God loves me and wants me to be happy." It's true. That's why there are brownies. God loves me. He made them for me. At an rate, I did end up trying a bite of these blondies yesterday. Which prompted me to have a much bigger piece for breakfast. I had to snarf this down in the kitchen where the kids couldn't see, but I feel it was worth it. These are appropriately chewy and moist. Very brownie-like indeed.

Little-Johns

 I came across an Amish recipe for long johns awhile back. I never got around to making them because generally if someone asks me for a doughnut they are asking me for a yeast doughnut shaped in a ring and fried lightly. Sometimes I cover them with powdered sugar, or a drizzled icing. Mostly I leave them plain. I decided to go ahead and try these today mainly because I was bored but also because I thought my father in law might like a couple. He's usually the one that requests the yeast doughnuts anyway. In making the dough I found that the recipe was very similar to what I usually make, except the flour to liquid ratio was a bit different, and there was nutmeg involved. Nutmeg makes everything better. I toss some freshly grated nutmeg into just about everything anymore. If I were to say anything negative about this recipe at all, or plan for anything to change, it would be that next time I will grate at least twice as much nutmeg. I put in only half of a nut this time. I did change some things about this recipe as I went along, but had kept the nutmeg suggestion as it was. From now on I'll trust my heavy hand with the nutmegs!

The other thing was the recipe calls for these to be HUGE. 7 or more inches long, big and puffy. I know most people love a good doughnut, but I just don't think something that big slathered with icing is going to taste good. I wound up shrinking these to only 4 inches long and started calling them 'little johns' instead. 

 

Another thing that is different than what the recipe called for was that it says to heat the oil until it is quit hot, and then begin frying. I heated it to 365º (fahrenheit)  which was far too hot for the cooking time suggested. The recipe called for 2 minutes on each side. These were done before the first two minutes were up. Done all the way inside and out, just done much sooner. I turned the heat down to stretch the time a bit. I think I preferred the quicker cooking and darker browning though

 

I drained these standing on end in a big bowl with some paper towels.  I quickly ran out of room though and had to lay some on towels on the counter. Apparently I can't count. Not surprising. In the fifth grade, and particularly when it came to math class, I was an outstanding student. Course I was out standing in the hall, but it still sounds good, eh? At any rate, I have to say that if you decide to fry your own doughnuts you should definitely drain them on end. These were much tastier than the ones which were laid flat. I've always laid things flat when draining off excess grease and with the exception of a unique batch of egg rolls, I've never felt like you could taste the oil/grease. I attribute that mostly to always using fresh flavorless oils for frying (like canola or safflower) I tried a small piece of the ones which were laid flat and thought "ooh these are good! Then when I tried a piece of the standing doughnuts I discovered how wrong I had been. True you can't taste the oil/grease really in the flat drainers, but the standers just plain tasted better. Their draining process was the only thing which was different about these two batches. The standers tasted much lighter and didn't feel heavy in my stomach at all. This probably explains why I ate two of them. Whoops.

My 4 1/2 year old said we absolutely had to frost these. I agreed to do it, and said we'd put it on in thin layers. He was pretty sure this was a crime, and therefore said that the frosting had to be pink. Normally I'd of had to say no to this. We discovered over the summer that he's allergic to food dye. Not just red dye #40, but all artificial dyes. This changed his diet quite a bit as American food makers have apparently decided that all food will be made better by flavorless artificial dyes. However we recently bought a natural dye set made by Chocolate Craft. We found it online at the Natural Candy Store (The link will take you directly to the color we used). It was pretty pricey at $5.99 for a half ounce bottle, and the color can easily be described as 'washed out' in frosting, but there were some perks in buying it. First it's a vegan product, which is awesome. We're not vegan, we're not even vegetarians, but we do pay attention to this sort of thing, but even more important is, it would make my kids happy. When using this we discovered that to even get a very light color, you need to use quite a bit of the dye. But it doesn't have that bizarre taste that so many artificially colored foods have. Plus, as I had expected, it made my son terribly excited. He didn't even care that the color was so faint. I would have gone ahead and used more to get a much pinker color for him, but didn't want to have to order more of this before I have to make his birthday cake.

We made a basic frosting with organic vegetable shortening, a splash of milk, some Mexican vanilla, the holiday red food coloring, and powdered sugar. I put it on in a thin coat over each doughnut and that was more than enough of a sweet kick to make these little johns a new favorite. Will I change anything about this recipe next time I make it? I think so. To make it a bit more healthy I think I'll add in some pureed pumpkin (Hey, I said a bit...) or maybe some mashed potatoes (not healthy, but who cares) Should I change anything, I'll be sure to post about it. For now, I'm just going to have another cup of coffee and another little john.


Next time I'll talk more about what food dye eradication has done for my family, and what all that entails. I'll be including a meal as well.


Be sure to cast your vote for either the recipe for baklava, german chocolate cake, or granola!