Finnish grandmother doughnuts

I've gotta say, this Sunday is the best Sunday.  I'm currently in my PJs (yes, it is 7 pm), sitting in a comfy chair, watching a documentary about Easter Island on TVO (though clearly not really paying attention), all while Naomi slaves away in the kitchen making me a delicious dinner.  And it's only going to get better!! How, you ask? WELL earlier today I made a million doughnuts.  Yes, delicious, cinnamon-sugar coated, deep fried doughnuts made using a recipe from Stephan's old-country finnish grand mother.  Turns out, the Finns really know how to make a doughnut.

HERE IS THE RECIPE!!

2 eggs
5 tbsp sugar
2 cups warm milk
1 cup melted butter
2 packets of yeast
1/2 tsp salt (typing this I have realized that I omitted the salt by accident!  Oops!)
approximately 5 cups and 5 tbsp all-purpose flour
a bunch of sugar and cinnamon for dusting

1. Whisk together the eggs and sugar
2. Add warm milk and melted butter.  It's important that the milk is warm or else the yeast won't work!
3. Sprinkle yeast on top of warm mixture and let sit for 15 minutes, until yeast is frothy
4. Mix in flour (and salt!) until dough is stiff-ish.  It's possible that you may need slightly more or slightly less than the recipe calls for, so don't add it all at once.
5. Cover dough and let rise for 1 hour
6. Roll out dough on lightly floured surface and cut out doughnut shapes.  I didn't have a cutter small enough for the centres so I used the mouth of a bottle.

7. Let cut out doughnuts rise for 15 minutes.
8. Heat vegetable oil for deep-frying.  I found the best temperature for this was between 160-170 C.
9. Fry doughnuts on each side until golden brown.  Make sure not to crowd the pot as it will make the doughnuts hard to flip.

10. Roll in cinnamon sugar
11. EAT!

This is an amazing recipe, but be warned, it makes a TON of doughnuts.  I made about 40, so probably I'll be gaining about 15 lb in the next week.

Enjoy!!

Happy November!

November is a great month.  Discount Halloween candy, winter coats, umm...that's all I've got actually.  But I really like both of those things.  Unlike October and December, there is no big event at the end of the month to stress about for weeks.  It's just a nice, relaxed month.


As promised, here is what I was stressing about all through October...

The bat costume!  It turned out pretty well!  And it's always nice when people ask you where you bought your costume, even though they can clearly tell that you made it yourself in your poorly lit basement bedroom with a half-broken sewing machine.  

Boo!

It's the most wonderful time of the year!  Halloween is upon us!  There is nothing I love more than the chilly fall weather, cozy sweaters, and children in costumes.  Any other time of year I could do without children.  They're loud and smelly and gross.  Children in Halloween costumes, though, are really freaking cute.

I remember as a kid having some of the greatest costumes.  My mom is the coolest and always made me amazing ones, even taking into account that I would have to wear a big puffy winter coat or snow suit over/under it.  My favourite costume was a big, fun-fur black cat.

Gobble Gobble (Let's make perogies!)

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

I hope you are all using this day off to do useful things like watch Lost on Netflix, lie around, and drink tea.  Oh, and cram your face full of left over homemade perogies and cabbage rolls!

This year, instead of making a traditional Thanksgiving dinner, we went for something a bit different and a bit more Ukrainian.  My grandfather on my mom's side was Ukrainian and while we don't partake in a whole lot of Ukrainian culture, we do like to eat perogies and cabbage rolls.  I'm pretty sure these are the two most delicious foods in the world.

I encourage everyone to make their own perogies.  I know it is easy to just go to the grocery store and buy a bag of 99 cent no name perogies, but, guys, don't.  Seriously.  I'm not going to lie, these take for-freaking-ever to make.  They do.  But they are SO DELICIOUS.  And really easy!  It's a bit intimidating at first, but to help to get over that, I am going to help!

I am a bad blogger. A very bad blogger.  But guyzzzz I've been busy okay??  Thinking back, I can't actually remember what exactly I have been busy doing... I feel the need to prove it to my hundreds and hundreds of readers.  Look.  LOOK!

I took some photos, guys!  I borrowed my dad's camera and played around with taking some photos of my mom's amazing garden.  Problem was, I couldn't figure out how to focus.  I kind of like the photos I took though!  Considering I was using exclusively the zoom, they don't look so bad I don't think!  And look at her basil!  Look at it!! It's HUGE!  You could feed a small family for a week with that basil!

This past weekend, Naomi and I celebrated our near-twin birthdays with a picnic in the park.  As you can see, we are basically professional party decorators.  Also, I don't think I have ever seen so much food at a picnic.  Good lord.  I made some very blunt birthday cookies.  They tasted okay, but the lemon tart from Nadege really kicked their lame cookie asses.

Needless to say, I have not had time to work on my quilt.  I did manage to go to Lens Mill when I was in Kitchener over Labour Day weekend to pick up some backing fabric and batting.  WAY too much of both.  The top of the quilt WOULD have been done except that I somehow managed to sew half of the squares incorrectly.  Don't ask.

I will be starting my cake decorating class at George Brown tomorrow!  That's exciting.  

Anyhow, time to get back to Gilmore Girls and tea.  Naomi's birthday wish.  

Good night loyal readers.

Hannah

I am the WORST at blogging. I swear I will post next week. I SWEAR!

On finishing projects

If there is one thing I know about myself, it's that I am a non-finisher.  That is to say, of course, that I do not finish things.  Leftovers, board games, movies, songs, and ESPECIALLY crafts.  I have piles of half knitted scarves, skirts missing hems, and I think I started sculpting some antlers out of chicken wire a while ago but I'm not sure where that has gotten to...  Maybe it's because my workspace looks like this:

Part of the reason I thought I might start this blog was so that maybe, just MAYBE, I would finish something.  So that I would feel like I have something/someone to report back to.  So here goes.  The projects I will finish, in a REASONABLE amount of time, are: 1. clean up this terrible desk/sewing table/trash heap and maybe get a LAMP for chrissakes and 2. A QUILT!  And it's started already!  Lemme show you!