Owen's Baked Mug Root Beer Donuts

So making baked donuts is similar to making muffins, you just get to use a fun pan :).  Anyway, these donuts Owen came up with were a hit with the boys, and they worked well.  I wanted my glaze to harden more, so I used the idea from Peabody for her glaze.  This will give you a nice frosting rather than the syrup we got :).  The calories are 311 per donut, and the boys gave them a perfect 10, and I gave them an 8.  We didn't have any root beer flavoring, this would be better with a root beer flavoring, but if you just like a sweet, semi-root beer donut, use vanilla extract like we did :).  Anyway, Owen loves root beer, so we made these donuts for him.  Here's what to do:

2 cans root beer, cooked to concentrate it  (it takes at least 20 minutes to cook it down to 1 1/3 cup)

2 1/4 c flour
1 T baking powder
1/2 t salt
1 c sugar
1 T vanilla (or vanilla and root beer extracts)
1 c concentrated root beer
2 T butter melted
1 egg
1 egg yolk
1/2 c yogurt

1/3 c concentrated root beer
8 T butter
2 1/2 c powdered sugar

Preheat the oven to 350.  Grease a donut pan or line a muffin tin.
In one bowl, stir together the flour, baking powder, salt and sugar.
In another bowl, mix together the vanilla (root beer extract), concentrated root beer, melted butter, egg yolk, egg, and yogurt.  Add the wet ingredients to the dry ingredients, stir until just coming together, then place in the greased donut pan (or place in paper muffin cups) and cook for 10-12 minutes for the donuts.  Remove from the donut pan, let cool a few minutes, the dip in the glaze.

Cook the concentrated root beer and butter until the butter is melted, then stir in the powdered sugar.  Let cool a little then dip the donuts in it and let them cool.

Culinary Concoction's By Peabody's Dr. Pepper Vanilla Float Cupcakes

Here is where you can find this fun recipe, one I have been wanting to try for a while.  I hadn't been able to find Dr. Pepper Vanilla Float soda, and so I have held off making these, but when I found my store had the pop again, I made these.  They are cute, fun, easy and flavorful, but unfortunately, they didn't taste enough like a vanilla float to us :(.  Anyway, I followed Peabody's recipe exactly, so follow the link to the recipe, and for 24 cupcakes, each cupcake was 307 calories.  We all gave these an 8.

Peabody's Nutella Truffle Brownie Cookie

Here is where I found this great, easy recipe, and I followed it almost exactly.  Noah gave it a perfect 10, and Owen and I gave them a 9.  Jonah likes them too, and since they are so easy they are a fun thing to make with kids.  The calories for 27 cookies was about 157, but I used way less of the Nutella mixture, so they are an approximate.  I calculated for 1/2 c Nutella and 1/2 c powdered sugar, so try it using those amounts first.  These are great, try them soon :).

Culinary Concoctions By Peabody's Samoas Mascarpone Filled Layer Cake

Here is where I found this recipe, I love her site.

I followed the recipe above exactly, except I used Keebler cookies (Samoa knock-offs) instead of Samoas, and although this was a lot of work, it was so delicious.  Eat this in small doses though, it is very rich.  Each serving, for 1/16 of the cake, was 861 calories, ouch!  Still, like I said, a little goes a long way.  Owen and Noah and I gave this a perfect 10, and Aaron gave it a 9.  It's so delicious, try it out!