Do you have habit that you find yourself doing when you’re crazy stressed? When I start to feel the stress levels rising, I have a few favorite go-tos. Sometimes just walking away and going outside can help. Sometimes I try to clear my mind by reading. Sometimes I eat an entire bag of popcorn at once.
Sometimes…. I whip out some weird recipe, throw on an apron, and bake. I try not to bake too often because we end up with more treats than Garrett and I could ever eat. (I do try to send Garrett to work with tins of cookies and bring some batches down to our building management staff.)
When I’m stressed out there’s something nice about baking. It feels familiar, reminds me of home, and is a great way to focus on something other than my anxiety. I like following recipes. Rolling up my sleeves and getting elbow deep in dough. Meticulously mixing and measuring. It’s therapeutic.
I have no fewer than three major, major sources of stress weighing on my shoulders the past couple of weeks. On their own, they’re not unmanageable but something about everything hitting all-at-freaking-once that has my brain spinning. I’ve been having issues sleeping as lie in bed and just run through everything in detail over and over again until I’m ready to just quit. (Happy to report that thing are moving along well and seem to be resolving– hard work and harder decisions pay off.)
But Sunday night, I desperately needed a distraction. Gar and I went out for an impromptu date night and then I came home and whipped up some homemade doughnuts.
I posted the photo on Instagram and I had a ton of comments asking for the recipe. So here’s the thing with impromptu baking… sometimes I pick recipes solely based on what I have available at the time. There are amazing looking doughnut recipes all over Pinterest, but I didn’t have buttermilk, sour cream, or any kind of chocolate. I was also down to three teaspoons of vanilla extract.
I found this recipe on Pinterest (hello, gorgeous doughnuts) and went for it. The only change I made was sprinkling in some nutmeg and skipping the vanilla beans.
I baked the doughnuts at night and then frosted them in the morning. Best Monday morning ever.
If you want to try your hand at doughnuts, I recommend using this pan if you’re baking them. And if you want a super easy mix, I recommend these!
xoxo
