Time To Make The Donuts

Perhaps, if you remember the eighties, you may recall the popular Dunkin Donuts commercial in which the ever familiar mustached man drones the phrase, "Time to make the donuts", repeatedly throughout the advertisment.  It has quite effortlessly become synonomous with the act of going to work.  So, this morning, I may have subconsciously been thinking about how school vacation is coming to an end, and daily schedules are resuming, when I decided to make these tasty bites.

These baked chocolate donuts are the product of a recipe I found on another blog.  I highly recommend using this recipe.  The donuts baked up quite full and they retained their fluffiness even after cooling.  I also made the absent-minded mistake of using regular flour instead of cake flour.  (And, I have both on hand!)  I then used some store bought frosting, heated, with a little grapeseed oil added for dip-ability.  A drizzle of caramel and then finally some sprinkles (or jimmies, as we like to call them here in New England) to round out the tops.  My husband, who rarely cares for much in the morning other than his cereal, actually went back for seconds on these...if you knew his devotion to cereal this is quite a compliment to this recipe.

In any case, despite the success of this recipe, I am hearing the drone of those words, "Time to make the donuts", as I consider returning to work after our ten day reprieve.  I am thankful to have had this time off for the holidays.  I was able to spend some great time with my family, both immediate and extended.  And, as always, those moments spent cuddled on the couch with my boys under a blanket watching one of their favorite movies are some of my favorite.  So, yeah, I've got a bit of a drone to my voice...but, once we're back in the swing of things I know we will all feel good about resuming our normal routine.

There's no fluff about it, these jimmies are great!

During this past school year, a colleague of mine (and friend) introduced me to the work of Jason Brockert.  She is fortunate enough to have this piece, or at the very least, one similar to it hanging on one very lucky wall in her home.  An artist out of Providence, RI, Jason was commissioned to do this piece which resulted in a number of paintings of the same product.  So, this got me to thinking...if I were to commssion an artist to paint a representation of a product from pop culture, what would I want him/her to do?  Naturally, with my affinity for food and art, you know that the product to be chosen would be from the shelves of the kitchen.  And, I'm sure that we've all got a product, through no fault of its' own, that conjures up nostalgia from the mere sight of it.  Take Drake's Ring Dings, for example; whenever my dad made our lunches for school, we were surprised by the presence of this creme-filled, chocolate cake.  Now, I can't speak for my brother, but the sight of that foil wrapped disc in my lunch made me giddy, mainly because it was taboo, and well, I was a kid with a sweet tooth!

Recently, though, I stumbled upon the product shown below.  Yes, yes, I know what you're thinking: Jimmies/sprinkles are all the same.  These, however, are a different caliber of sprinkles. I first heard of these decorative nonpareils on Bakerella's website.  She had used them to decorate some of her cake pops.  Since, then, I've been wanting to try them.  They have been, up until this point, a little hard to find.  Shopping for dinner staples the other day at a locally owned grocery store, brought me face-to-face with this perky little package.  I snatched it up and proceeded to the check-out line.  Call it an impulse buy, but I've since gone out and bought the chocolate ones, too.  They are that good.  I've made my kids sundaes too many days in a row because of this little dude.  In fact, I want to have the ice cream just so I can have the sprinkles on top! 

Here's the thing: most generic sprinkles/jimmies come in fun colors, blah, blah, blah....but, they really don't taste good.  They have this sort of stale sugar taste.  Sure you can easily overlook that when you've got a mouthful of cupcake or ice cream and the sprinkles are merely "decoration".  But in the case of  Mr. Sprinkles, he brings the fun factor and then some.  And what's not to love about the flip-top baseball hat lid.  I know my boys were impressed when they realized the lid was that child-friendly. 

In closing, I think if I went to Mr. Brockert today and asked him to do a painting that pays homage to a particular product...I would pick Mr. Sprinkles Rainbow Sprinkles.  And, really, they're called jimmies, from a New Englanders stand point.  Speaking of New England, if you get a chance, read the history of why New Englanders call sprinkles, "jimmies".  You can find it on the Mr. Sprinkles website.  It has to do with a doctor, a hospital, and a young cancer patient....it is quite heart-warming.  Yet, another reason why desserts with jimmies do not "parallel" ones without.