Homemade Doughnuts and Thumbprints: A {club: BAKED} Two-For-One

As usual, I have been great at baking and lousy at posting recipes. So here are the past two bake-alongs from my newest group, club: BAKED. First up are the Farmstand Buttermilk Doughnuts. I’ve actually had a fair amount of experience with homemade doughnuts, so I wasn’t intimidated by these at all. They were fun to make, they just ended up being too dry. I followed the directions, but probably should have either lowered the temperature of the oil or taken them out sooner. Anyway, I don’t think there is such a thing as a bad doughnut!

Up next are the Chocolate Mint Thumbprints, which I will admit I wasn’t super excited about making. I generally like soft, chewy cookies, and these were described as being more of a crumbly texture. BUT they were absolutely amazing in every way, the kind of cookie that you just cannot stop eating! I agree with Matt Lewis, co-author of the cookbook, that they seem like a holiday cookie, but that didn’t stop us from polishing off the entire batch (3 dozen) in less than 24 hours. A couple of quick tips for WHEN you make these:

1. The recipe says to chill the dough, but don’t let it get firm. Chill it for the prescribed 30 minutes and then get back to work.
2. My local grocery store has the world’s worst selection of everything imaginable. You are supposed to roll the balls of cookie dough in coarse sugar, and all I could find was raw turbinado sugar, which is like coarse sugar x100. But it made the cookies look sparkly and gorgeous–a boon for holiday cookies–and gave them a super satisfying crunch. It might have been my favorite part of the cookie.
3. They suggest using the end of a wooden spoon to make your indentations. Excellent idea. It worked like a charm. And repoking the holes midway through the baking time was another gem of a suggestion. The thumbprint-making technique alone makes this recipe fantastic, before you even get to how yummy the finished product is!