‘Bake the world a better place’
I was listening to a podcast by Brianna West the other day entitled, ‘let the heart tell you what and the mind tell you how’. It is about how to uncover your inner most desires, as she calls it, exploring the contours of the heart. I like that metaphor a lot. Uncovering your true calling in life, your Dharma, can be like exploring an unknown terrain. Hilly and steep in some places, dark and foreboding in others but ultimately liberating and beautiful when you start to find what you were looking for, like water in a desert.
I have recently taken on teaching high school students. Friends have asked if I like teaching. I am not sure if I do love the act of teaching. Speaking in front of others has always been hard for me, it takes a lot of energy, and it is something that I need time and space to recover from. So why teach, so many people say. For me it is a way to engage others in conversation, illustrate to them possibilities and concepts that they didn’t think possible and so subtly influence them through exposure to new things. Do I love teaching? I think more so, I like influencing and inspiring. Leaving the people and places I enter a little better off. So maybe the answer is yes, as teaching is a means to that end, a vehicle to extend your heart and love to others.
This recipe was our end of term finale. It is a simple mix and bake. It is a cake recipe, so the donuts are baked. The kids said they preferred them to fried donuts. It also gave me the opportunity to talk about dye free sprinkles and why we might want to use them.
The recipe
Yield: 12 Donuts
Ingredients
- 2 cups all-purpose flour
- 3/4 cup granulated sugar
- 2 tsp. baking powder
- 1/2 tsp. salt
- 3/4 cup milk
- 2 large eggs
- 3 tbsp. unsalted butter, melted
- 2 tsp. vanilla extract
Option 1
- 1 cup powdered sugar
- 4-6 tbsp. milk
- 1 tsp. vanilla extract
- Sprinkles/food coloring (optional)
Option 2
- 1 cup chocolate chips
- 1 tsp. coconut oil
- Sprinkles (optional)
Option 3
- ½ cup sugar
- ½ tsp cinnamon
Method
- Preheat the oven to 350F
- In a large mixing bowl, mix the flour, baking powder and salt
- Melt the butter and let cool slightly
- In a separate bowl, whisk together the eggs, sugar, milk, melted butter and vanilla until blended well.
- Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients, stir until just combined (important). Do not overmix.
- Prepare the molds with spray/oil
- Spoon the batter into the donut molds or using a spoon or Ziplock/piping bags and pour into the molds till half full.
- Bake the donuts for 10-12 minutes or until a pick comes out clean
- Let cool for a few minutes then place on a wire rack
- Mix together the ingredients for the topping you chose and dip each one in, one at a time
- Feel free to top with sprinkles, I like Watkins for dye free sprinkles.
