Spice Cake Doughnuts with Vanilla Bean Glaze

Happy fall, everyone! This is my favorite time of year, with its cool days, changing leaves, and great clothes. It won’t be long until you’ll find me in our neighborhood park taking endless photos of leaves and sipping a hot chocolate, all while wearing some new favorite scarf, sweater, and boots.

And, of course, I love fall baking. Besides the obvious apples and pears, there are some flavors that I tend to associate with fall. One of my favorite fall flavors is actually a combination of flavors, specifically spices. Combine some cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, etc., and I’m positively giddy. I just love adding those great fall spices to all kinds of things.

In fact, one of my favorite things is just a simple spice cake. So, I thought I would take the idea of a spice cake and turn it into doughnuts. You wouldn’t believe how good my apartment smelled when I was baking these. I really expected the neighbors to track the scent to my door and start demanding samples.

Then, I topped each one in a simple vanilla glaze to add a little extra sweetness. I used one of my favorite ingredients, vanilla bean paste, for the glaze. If you prefer to use a vanilla bean, I’ve included info on how to do that in the recipe. Or, if you just have vanilla extract, it’s a straight substitution. You will, however, miss out on those lovely vanilla specks!

I baked these in my doughnut pan, which I must confess I don’t use nearly as much as I should. Being able to bake homemade doughnuts so simply is both good and bad. Good because hello, doughnuts. Bad because it’s so tempting to make batches and batches of them. If you don’t have a doughnut pan, don’t let that hold you back from making these beauties. Although I’ve not tried it, I believe these would work just fine in muffin pans.

I have to tell you that we absolutely loved these little guys. They have such a wonderful flavor and texture. And that sweet vanilla glaze gives them just enough extra sweetness to make them pretty perfect. These doughnuts are a great weekend treat. Or for all you coffee drinkers out there, I bet one of these would be just lovely with a cup of your favorite coffee.

Pasta with Mussels and Chorizo

I am, for perhaps the last time, clacking away at my keyboard while enjoying the view from my window.  The dark night sky punctuated by a number of blinking exclamation points…buildings with a multitude of windows, some lit, some dark.  The view one can expect in a city.  A view one can choose to embrace, or to bemoan.

I choose to embrace it.  It’s not perfect, as city life is certainly far from perfection, but it is mine.  I choose to see the sparkling windows, peeks into other peoples' lives, making me feel more connected to the world, than separated by all these walls of concrete.  I choose to see the drugstore and the Korean grocer down the street, conveniences that make my life so much easier, instead of the traffic and incessant horn-blowing.  I choose to see the movies that C and I can watch, or not, at a moment’s notice, instead of the lack of outdoor activities and the pollution that would make it difficult in any case.

But why is this perhaps the last time I am enjoying the view?  Well, as the family grows, and we make room for our new addition, some things are likewise forgone.  My office being the first in that category.  In the interest of little H having a room of his own we are turning my office into his nursery and I will now be working in…a closet.  It’s not as bad as all that.  We’ve transformed out semi-walk-in into a semi-office and it is actually shaping up quite promising.  Maybe I’ll post pictures when it is done to encourage and inspire all flat-dwellers out there that all is not lost just because we don’t have that wide expanse of space that house and country dwellers enjoy.

Anyway, here I am, clacking away again, because I couldn’t let this day pass without wishing every last one of you a very merry Christmas!  I know I haven’t posted in a while (now if only I could have a penny for every time I’ve said that), but consider this a Christmas miracle.  A Christmas gift.  And a hopeful leap towards more posts in the New Year.

Another thing I love about my city are the small neighborhood markets that bring fresh produce and artisan wares from whence they came to our busy urban tangle.  Two such products are used in this recipe.  Fresh mussels from one of the two seafood vendors I buy from, and Spanish chorizo from two sisters who lived in Spain and are now back here and are making chorizos themselves.

Pasta with Mussels and Chorizo

    Olive oil
    500 grams linguine (or any long pasta of your choice)
    1 kilo mussels
    300 grams Spanish chorizo (about 3), chopped
    6-8 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
    1/2 cup (or thereabouts) white wine
    1 small bunch of parsley, leaves picked and roughly chopped, and stems finely chopped
    1 small bunch of basil, leaves picked
    optional: dried chili flakes


- Cook pasta in a big pot of rapidly boiling and well salted water.
- While the pasta is cooking, get on with your chorizo and mussels.  Heat a large skillet (one that will fit all the chorizo, mussels, and pasta) over medium high heat.  When the pan is hot, add a couple of swirls of olive oil.  Add the garlic, parsley stems, and chorizo.  Sauté until the chorizo is lightly browned and has released its orange paprika-infused oil – this shouldn’t take long. If your chorizo seems to exude an alarming amount of oil you can take some out at this point – just remember that you will need some of that oil to create the sauce so leave a good amount back.
- Add the mussels to the chorizo in the pan and toss until the mussels are slicked with oil.  Add the wine and chopped parsley leaves and cover.  Cook for about 5 minutes, shaking the pan a few times, until the mussels have opened.
- While the mussels are cooking test your pasta for doneness.  The packet usually says 12 minutes but test after 10.  You want the pasta to still be a smidge underdone, as it will carry on cooking when you transfer it to the mussels.  Once it has reached that point, drain, saving some of the pasta water.
- Check to see if your mussels are done.  If most have already opened, tip the cooked pasta noodles into the pan with the mussels and chorizo and toss well to get all the pasta coated in the liquid (which is now a heavenly combination of chorizo oil, white wine, and mussel juices).  Add the basil leaves and toss again.  The pasta will suck up most of the liquid, and will continue to do so even off the heat.  If it starts to look dry add some of the pasta cooking water.
- Take the pan off the heat and enjoy immediately.

I love the combination or shellfish and chorizo (including shrimp and chorizo…yum) and this dish plays off that perfect marriage excellently.  Since there are so few ingredients here try to get the best you can.  The smoky chorizo, plump mussels, and fresh herbs work wonders together.  This is the kind of dish I like to make on a weekend when we are all at home and I come from the market with my bag bursting with fresh things.  It makes me feel closer to nature despite the buildings and cars and congestion that tell me otherwise.

With my beloved city, with my new closet-office, with the coming New Year, and with life…I am choosing to embrace, to endeavor to be Ms. Brightside, as corny as that sounds.  Life is too short and can be filled with too many potholes and pessimists.  There is much I am grateful for and more that I am looking forward to.  And good food to share is definitely one of those.