Pumpkin Maple butter swirled Donut Muffins

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Pumpkin Maple Butter Swirled Donut Muffins

I love donuts but no longer eat them often. One of the first recipes I ever tried making on my own (back when I was in 7th grade) was a donut recipe and also have a great yeasted donut recipe that I have posted on the blog, but its been a while that I have made them at home, for the fear that I will end up eating a good portion of them.

For people who don’t want to take out their frying pans and indulge in donuts, I am sharing this recipe for Pumpkin Maple Butter Swirled Donut muffins today on the blog. Topped with melted butter and cinnamon sugar, they combine the taste of donuts, but in a baked muffin form. Its a win-win situation for donut lovers who are watching their weight, but still want the occasional carbs aka people like me!

I had developed this recipe in collaboration with Sprouts and their newly launched line of pumpkin products and you can also find the recipe along with other mouthwatering recipes on their website . Since it’s still pumpkin spice season I thought I will share it here on the blog, in case you missed it there.

Pumpkin Maple Butter Swirled Donut Muffins

If you have a Sprouts close to you, I highly recommend their maple pumpkin butter for these. Its just adds to the flavor of the donut muffins. The maple butter is also great on toast, or on these pumpkin maple butter cheesecake bars recipe that I shared a few weeks back. If you do not live close to a Sprouts,  despair not. You can still make these and skip using it. You can also get creative and use homemade preserve or nutella or any other flavored butter for the swirl. Share results if you do decide to substitute.

I adapted this recipe from here, but since I made quite a few changes it was only on the third attempt that I got it right. Thankfully, I had taste testers to get them off my hand each time I tried it and eventually developed a recipe I liked. Substituting half of the butter with applesauce and replacing half of the all purpose flour with whole wheat flour makes these donut muffins even better, since you can feel a tad less guilty eating them.

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My favorite Apple Pie recipe

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My Favorite Apple Pie Recipe

There is nothing more comforting than a slice of apple pie. I love chocolate and believe me I do love it, but there is something about apple pie that screams to be eaten and can beat a chocolate dessert on certain days. Buttery and flaky crust, a sweet tart apple filling, beautiful lattice work or even the simple kinds, with a scoop of ice cream or without, apple pie is comfort food; the perfect comforting dessert.

I have been wanting to share this recipe for a while now and I am glad I have managed to do it this year before thanksgiving. I have made this recipe so many times that I have lost count. Generally a recipe that I make this often lands up on the blog sooner than later. But with this pie it took a while to have it up on the blog. Somehow whenever I made it, I was never able to photograph it. It always got over before I got a chance to shoot it. But finally I did get to take pictures of the finished pie and here I am today sharing the recipe for my favorite apple pie on the blog.

My Favorite Apple Pie Recipe

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Tart cherry, butterscotch and dark chocolate chip cookies

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Tart cherry, butterscotch and dark chocolate chip cookies.

Seas salt caramel, tart cherry and dark chocolate chip cookies

“Be brave.
You are never going to see the whole picture. You won’t always know how the pieces will fall together or break apart. Life doesn’t work like that. You take chances. You try your best. You follow your heart and your instincts. You give yourself a chance. You risk. You win sometimes and you lose sometimes – but either way you live. You learn. You grow. Be brave. Love, I pray that you will be brave. Bravely try. Bravely believe. Bravely fall and bravely rise again and again and again. You have to choose to believe that there is nothing and no one that can destroy you. You have to choose to believe there is no failure you cannot recover from. You have to choose confidence over cowardice. Choose faith over fear. Choose to try rather than stand still. Choose your story. Choose your dream. Choose your life. Be brave…”-   @soulbraille.

 

My mom used to make nestle tollhouse’s chocolate chip cookies for us as kids. That was the only chocolate chip cookie I ever ate as a child. Growing up chocolate chip cookies weren’t a thing in India. You didn’t get chocolate chips in India. A friend of my dad’s in the US would send us a packet of Nestle’s chocolate chips and my mom would use the recipe on the back of the packet to bake cookies for us. My brother and I loved them. The chips would be rationed carefully so these cookies were not made that often and were always a special treat when made.

Those were the good ‘ol days.

Phone wasn’t a thing, no social media to see what other people are up to and secretly envying their “perfect” lifestyle. Internet hadn’t arrived- at least not in our parts of the world. TV was limited to a single channel, satellite TV came a little later, but that too had only a handful of shows. We went outside to play. We spoke to people to make connections. We appreciated in person when we liked something instead of hitting a like button on a photo. We cared more about ourselves and not what other people were up to. We had time to make real and not virtual relationships and work towards growing them. While I love that technology has brought us all closer, it has some how also managed to keep us apart. It’s a different world we live in than the one I grew up in. There are times I want to disconnect from it all. But somehow my job requires me to remain connected. Or so I tell myself.

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