Donuts, sticky buns and gardening

Mid July is a tricky time for me. I still have a ton of work to do despite being on vacation and all I really want to do is head up to the beach and spend an afternoon with the sun on my skin. I find a nice compromise in the garden, with my hands in the dirt and plants (and weeds thriving about me)... I probably spend an equal time shouting expletives at the rabbits and deer feasting the fruits of my labors.

Another thing that I adore (mostly for breakfast) and that I'd given up is donuts. I'm a sucker for the crumb of a good plain, chocolate glazed or even blueberry donut. The cover and stories about the luscious babycakes baked goods were what drew me to the cookbook to begin with and Erin's open and approachable prose and scrumptious recipes are what keep me coming back.

While I didn't get fancy with fruit, I did try out the agave donut, the plain cake donut and the chocolate donut. The agave donut was honestly nothing special. It was a good donut and if there weren't other donut recipes in the book it would suffice. The birds ate most. The plain cake donut, while continuing the trend of a lot of baked goods in this book needing much longer in the oven, was one of the best donuts I've ever had. Regardless of their classification. I could have one of these with a glass of hemp or almond milk for a month straight and savor every morsel...

And then, I made the chocolate donut. The chocolate donut is a nice marriage of sweet and chocolate- neither overpowers and the little crunch to it makes it the ultimate snack. I ate mine with peanut butter for breakfast and loved it!

On the buns front, I did wonder buns and honey buns.
The wonder buns were a fiasco. That dough and I just don't get along, but I have plans some rainy Sunday to experiment and see where it is I'm going wrong. For now, I'm content with the honey bun recipe. They had chewy, sweet and tasty down. They looked right, they smelled right and even my mother raved about them.

I'm finding the usually only needing one bowl and no electrical apparatus to be so enjoyable in this new baking venture. It seems to take me half the time to make things as opposed to the cakes. I'm thoroughly enjoying this process!