When was the last time you made breakfast for dinner? I’ve been trying to make it more often, just because it’s quick, simple, and budget friendly. I usually make eggs, bacon, biscuits, and potatoes. This week I decided to make doughnuts.

You heard me.

I made doughnuts for dinner. No eggs, no bacon. Just doughnuts. My children think I am the best mother ever. Or, at least they did, while they were eating, but then I shouted at them to clean their rooms not too long after dinner and I went back to being mean mommy. It was nice while it lasted, though.

Doughnuts definitely take a bit of time and effort, but that first delicious bite you take makes it all worth it. These aren’t difficult, by any means, just a bit more involved than I usually like. There was the rising, the flouring, the rolling, the cutting, the rising, the frying, the topping, and then, finally, happily, thankfully, the eating.

I know a lot of people are scared of yeast, but don’t be. If I can make yeasty treats, so can you. Besides, watching my flat little doughnuts magically puff up made me feel like some sort of superhero. A Superhero of Yeast.

The hardest part was getting the risen doughnuts into the hot oil without deflating them. Deflating. Is that the right word?

I found that it was best to stick my thumb through the hole and gently lift them up. It took me quite a few tries before I really got it.

I like variety, so I made glazed doughnuts, cinnamon and sugar doughnuts, and doughnuts with chocolate frosting. I’ll share the frosting recipe with you tomorrow. It’s the frosting my mama puts on brownies and I’ve been wanting to share it with you since the day I started this blog. It’s good. It’s real good.

Anyway, the glaze recipe that I used was bit chunky for some reason. They still tasted good, but they looked kinda funky.

I snapped this picture, shouted for my kids that their dinner was ready, and then, in just a matter of seconds, this is what my plate full of doughnuts looked like:

Crispy and Creamy Doughnuts
Recipe from allrecipes.com

• 2 (.25 ounce) envelopes dry active yeast
• 1/4 cup warm water (105 to 115 degrees)
• 1 1/2 cups lukewarm milk
• 1/2 cup white sugar
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 1/3 cup shortening
• 5 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 quart oil, for fying

Pour the warm water into the bowl of your mixer and sprinkle in the yeast. (I always add a pinch of sugar to feed the yeast at this point. Not sure if that actually does anything or not, but I like to think it helps.) Let the yeast mixture stand for 5 minutes or until foamy.

Pour in the warm milk, sugar, salt, eggs, shortening, and 2 cups of the flour. Mix on low for a few minutes. Beat in remaining flour 1/2 cup at a time until the dough no longer sticks to the sides of the bowl. Knead for 5 minutes or until smooth and elastic.

Put the dough into a greased bowl and allow to rise until doubled in a warm place (your turned off oven works great for this!).

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and gently roll out to about 1/2 inch thick. Cut with a floured doughnut cutter. Cover with a towel and let rise until double.

Heat oil in a deep fryer or large pan until it reaches 350 degrees. Carefully place doughnuts into the oil and fry on each side until they are golden. Drain on a wire rack.

Glaze

• 1/3 cup butter
• 2 cups powdered sugar
• 1 1/2 tsp vanilla
• 4 tbsp hot water (as needed)

Melt butter in a saucepan over medium heat. Stir in powdered sugar and vanilla until smooth. Remove from heat and add water, as needed, to thin the icing out.

I can pretty much guarantee that now that I have discovered the beauty of scones that you will all get sick of them and wish that I would stop posting scone recipes. Please, just indulge me for a bit longer okay? I need to thoroughly explore the world of the scone and I promise to only share the very, very best scones that I make. These fit in that very, very best category.

Bacon. Cheddar cheese. Green onions. Those are a few of my favorite ingredients and each one of them is hidden away inside these delightful little scones. Well, okay, so these weren’t “little” scones. They were big. Big and hearty and filling. They’re perfect for breakfast, but I think they’d go just wonderfully with a bowl of soup for lunch.

These were a bit fussier than my last recipe for Chocolate Chip Scones, but they were so worth the extra effort. We’ve been grabbing scones for breakfast every morning this week! They are quick to reheat in the microwave, but they are even tastier heated up in the oven for a bit.

Just look at these! They’re like a clean, compact little breakfast sandwich! In fact, I think I might go eat one now. For dessert. Don’t even try to stop me.

Bacon and Cheddar Scones
Recipe from The Pastry Queen

• 3 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 tbsp baking powder
• 1 tsp salt
• 2 tsp ground black pepper
• 1/2 cup chilled butter, cut into small cubes
• 1 1/2 cups grated cheddar cheese
• 4 green onions, thinly sliced
• 10 slices bacon, cooked and crumbled
• 3/4 to 1 1/2 cups buttermilk
• 1 large egg
• 2 tbsp water

Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Fit your mixer with the paddle attachment and add flour, baking powder, salt, and black pepper to the bowl. Mix on the low speed. Slowly add cubes of butter to the flour mixture and keep mixing until it is crumbly and your butter is in small pea sized pieces. Add the grated cheese and mix until blended in.

(If you don’t have a mixer just stir dry ingredients together and cut butter in with a pastry cutter or two knives and then stir in the cheese.)

Add the green onions, bacon, and 3/4 cup of buttermilk to the flour and cheese mixture. Mix by hand until all the ingredients are incorporated. Do not overwork the dough! If the dough is still to dry to hold together, add in more buttermilk 1 tablespoon at a time, until you can form the dough into a ball.

Turn the dough out onto a lightly floured surface and form it into a ball. Using a well floured rolling pin, flatten the dough into a circle about 8 inches wide (mine was closer to 10 inches) and 1/2 inch thick. Cut the dough into 8 to 10 equal wedges depending on the size of scone you want.

Whisk egg and water together and brush the tops of the scone with the egg wash. I sprinkled a bit of kosher salt on the tops because I’m wild and crazy, but the original recipe didn’t call for this.

Place scones on an ungreased cookie sheet and bake for 18-20 minutes or until they are golden brown and no longer sticky in the centers. Serve warm!

I’m going to make an educated guess here and say that you love muffins. I mean, come on. Everyone loves muffins! They are easy to make, delicious to eat, portable, freezable, and delectable. Delectable. I don’t think I’ve ever used that word before. I just really needed another “-able” word to round out that sentence. Forgive me.

Now, these muffins. I came across them in an old Taste Of Home magazine and I ripped the recipe out and stuck it in my To Bake Soon pile. All of my recipes are in the To Bake Soon pile. I don’t bother ripping out recipes that I don’t want to make as soon as possible. I’m wild and crazy that way.

Enough about the piles of papers littering my house, let’s discuss these muffins.

They did what every muffin should do, and that’s bake up nice and tall. I hate when I make a muffin that doesn’t achieve that beautiful round top. Flat muffins are bad, man. My kids loved these muffins, but I had one complaint. The orange zest in them gave them a bit of an odd flavor. Next time (and, yes, there will be a next time) I will make these without the orange zest. These were still very good and I still ate more of them than I care to tell you, I just found myself wishing I had left the orange zest out. If you choose to make these (and why wouldn’t you?), go ahead and add the orange zest if it sounds good, or leave it out if it doesn’t. The world will keep on spinning either way. True story.

This muffin recipe mixes up like most others, wet ingredients and then dry. Easy peasy.

I was supposed to end up with twelve muffins, but I had enough batter for twelve regular muffins and twelve somewhat skimpy mini-muffins.

The streusel topping is just flour, brown sugar, and butter. Cut the butter into the flour and brown sugar and sprinkle a little (or a lot) of the topping on the muffins before baking. You could also add a bit of rolled oats to the streusel topping if you want to feel all healthy and virtuous.

Bake these guys for 20-25 minutes at 375 degrees. Your house will smell lovely.

Let the muffins cool on a wire rack and try your darnedest to keep your kids away from the streusel topping. Something about streusel topping just begs kids to pick it off.

Look at how tall and round and perfectly muffin-like they are?

I love muffin-like muffins. Am I still even making sense? Did I eat too many muffins and now I’m in the midst of some sort of pumpkin muffin overload and it’s causing me to type things without even caring if they make sense?

It’s totally possible.

Pumpkin Steusel Muffins
adapted from Taste Of Home

• 1/4 cup butter, softened
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup packed brown sugar
• 2/3 cup canned pumpkin
• 1/2 cup buttermilk
• 2 eggs
• 2 tablespoons molasses
• 1 teaspoon orange zest
• 2 cups all-purpose flour
• 1 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
• 1 teaspoon cinnamon
• 1/4 teaspoon ginger
• 1/8 teaspoon cloves
• 1/4 teaspoon salt

STREUSEL TOPPING:

• 1/3 cup all-purpose flour
• 3 tablespoons brown sugar
• 2 tablespoons cold butter
• 2 tablespoons rolled oats (optional)

Pre-heat oven to 375 degrees. Cream together butter and sugars until creamy. Beat in pumpkin, buttermilk, eggs, molasses, and orange peel. Combine the dry ingredients in a small bowl and mix into the batter. Stir just until combined. Fill greased or paper-lined muffin tins 2/3 full of batter.

For topping, combine the flour and brown sugar and oats (if using)  in a small bowl. Cut in butter until the mixture is crumbly. Spoon streusel topping over the muffins and bake for 20 to 25 minutes or until a tester inserted in the center comes out clean. Cool in pan for 5 minutes before removing to a wire rack. Enjoy!

Oh, Lord, y’all. Have I got a recipe for you.

The other day I was flipping through my rather large stack of unread cooking magazines searching for recipes to tear out and save for later. I came across a recipe for Creamy Onion Garlic Bread and my heart stopped. The name alone was enough to make my mouth start watering. It wasn’t pretty.

I hurriedly ripped the recipe out, because with ingredients like onions and garlic it had to be good, right? Well, yeah, I’m sure it probably was a “good” recipe, but it wasn’t what I was hoping for. The list of ingredients included garlic powder, but no real garlic, and that, my friends, is a real tragedy.

I decided right then and there that I was going to save the world from eating mediocre garlic bread and, y’all, I don’t want to brag or anything, but this is the best bread I have ever eaten in my life. If you try just one recipe from this site, let it be this one. Seriously. Delicious doesn’t even begin to describe the creamy yumminess that is this bread.

Here’s what you’ll need: cream cheese, butter, mayonnaise (if you’re a mayo hater, just double the amount of cream cheese), parmesan cheese, garlic, garlic powder, green onions, salt and pepper. Oh, and a loaf of french bread.

The first thing you want to do is get out your butter and cream cheese. We need to bring them to room temperature. While that is happening, dice up some garlic and green onions. I chopped mine fairly small, because most people don’t like large chunks of onion or garlic. People are strange that way.

Get out a pan and drizzle about a teaspoon of olive oil in the pan and saute your garlic and green onions. Be careful not to the burn the garlic. You’re just cooking it until it gets soft and fragrant. When you are at risk of sticking your face in the pan to inhale that delicious smell, it probably means your garlic is done. Remove from the heat and set aside.

Dump your room temperature cream cheese, butter and mayo  into the bowl of your mixer (fitted with the paddle attachment) and start beating it together. Dump in some shredded parmesan cheese. The stuff from the green can would work, but freshly grated is really worth it. Now add in a bit of garlic powder and turn off your mixer.

Stir in the green onions and garlic, sprinkle on some salt and pepper and take a lick right out of the bowl.

Grab your french bread and slice it in half lengthwise. I had about four serving spoons worth of the topping, so I just plopped two spoonfuls on each slice of bread and spread it all out.

(If you are really hungry, and I don’t blame you one bit if you are, go ahead and pop both of these into the oven. If, however, you prefer to save one of these loaves of bread for another time, just pop it into the freezer for thirty minutes. After thirty minutes the topping should be frozen enough not to smear all over the place. Wrap it tightly in aluminum foil and freeze until needed. Bake it straight from the freezer at 400 degrees for 10-15 minutes. Keep an eye on it, though, you won’t want it to get too brown and crunchy.)

Alright, now pop your loaf of bread into the oven at 400 degrees for 5-10 minutes.

Oh my word. Would you look at that?

I sprinkled mine with a bit of chopped parsley, just to make it prettier. You can do the same or you can just shove the entire loaf in your face. Either way, you won’t regret it.

Mm. Lunch. Don’t tell my kids, but I fed my salad to the cat and ate another slice of bread.

Creamy Onion Garlic Bread

Ingredients:

Loaf of french bread
4 oz. cream cheese, room temperature
1/4 cup butter, room temperature
1/4 cup mayonnaise
1/4 cup shredded parmesan cheese
4 cloves garlic
2 bunches green onions
1 tsp. garlic powder
salt and pepper, to taste
parsley, for garnish

1. Finely dice the green onions and garlic. Drizzle a large pan with olive oil and saute onions and garlic for 1-2 minutes, until garlic is soft and fragrant. Remove from heat and set aside.

2. In the bowl of a mixer fitted with the paddle attachment, beat together cream cheese, butter and mayonnaise. Mix in parmesan cheese, garlic powder, salt and pepper.

3. Pour in the onion and garlic mixture and stir together with the cheese mixture.

4. Slice the french bread in half lengthwise and spread the cut side of the bread with the mixture.

5. Bake in a pre-heated 400 degree oven for 5-10 minutes, until the top is slightly browned and the bread is a bit crunchy.

It’s kind of odd that I named my blog Buns In My Oven. I don’t often make buns or bread or any other delicious yeasty goods. Every time I do, though, I remember. I remember that oh, yes, it absolutely is worth the time and oh, it most certainly is worth the effort. And, who am I kidding here, effort? I put the ingredients in my kitchenaid, attach the dough hook, and flip the switch on. Baking bread is easy! Why don’t I do it more?

I don’t suppose I’ll be allowed to buy sliced sandwich bread that often anymore after letting my son get a taste of this Honey Wheat Bread. He’s addicted. Poor thing, only nine years old and already he needs an intervention.

(I’m in a hurry today and didn’t take pictures of the actual making of this bread. I promise you didn’t miss much.I’m also going to skip the step by step instructions and my general non-stop talking. I know. It’s inhumane! It’s rude! It’s, well, all I have time for today.)

Honey Wheat Bread

1 cup warm water (around 110 degrees farenheit)
2 teaspoons active dry yeast
3 tablespoons honey
3 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 1/2 cups whole wheat flour
1/2 tsp salt
2 cups all purpose flour

Dissolve yeast in warm water and add honey. Using the dough hook on your stand mixer (or do this the old fashioned way) stir in the whole wheat flour, vegetable oil and salt. Slowly add in half of the all purpose flour. Knead the dough for a few minutes adding more flour as needed until it all comes together. You may not need to use the entire two cups of all purpose flour (or you may need to use more, depending on The Bread Baking Gods, also known as The Weather.) The dough should form a ball and be slightly sticky to the touch. Place in a greased bowl and allow to rise until doubled, about 60 minutes. Punch down dough and shape into a loaf. Place in well greased 9×5 loaf pan and allow to rise until the dough is about 1 inch above the pan, about 60 minutes.  Bake at 375 degrees for 25-30 minutes.

A few notes: I used too large of a pan and mine didn’t rise above the edges. It still tasted fine, but didn’t look as pretty. I also baked this on a rainy day, which is, apparently, a big no-no in bread baking. Something about the humidity, blah blah science blah. My bread still turned out. Also, when dough needs to rise, I turn my oven on low for a minute or two and then turn it off and stick the dough in the oven to rise. It seems to rise a bit better that way. One last thing: Carbs are yummy. You should eat them as often as possible. Preferably covered with butter.