Dessert Night--Donuts

Dessert these days seems to be a forbidden pleasure. Something to feel guilty about. Something almost shameful. We long for a special occasion when we can indulge, when we can tell the guilty feeling that it is OK because it was someone's birthday or anniversary. At least I do! I love desserts, well I love food, but especially desserts. They are such fun to cook and fun to eat as well.

A few years ago I was struggling to lose baby weight left from 4 pregnancies. During my last pregnancy I ended up with gestational diabetes. My Doctor made it crystal clear that if I didn't loose some weight I stood a better than 50% chance of ending up with type 2 diabetes. In case you didn't know 50% of all women who have gestational diabetes will end up with type 2 within 5 years. One pregnancy worth of needles, checking my blood sugar, and giving myself insulin shots was quite enough, thank you! I have no desire to make it a permanent way of life.

To say I was motivated to lose weight would be an understatement. I would go along for weeks following the diet, eating lots of fruits and veggies, low fat protein, exercising, and of course forgoing desserts. I would make desserts for the kids and my husband but I would sip my diet soda and say "No Thanks" while they ate angel food cake. Then would come the day when I would find myself suddenly eating an entire tub of mocha frosting....with a spoon....like it was ice cream. Yeah, not a healthy choice I know but darn that stuff tastes good! So combine my lack of will power with 4 kids whining, "Can we have dessert?" every blessed day along with the saying "All things in moderation" and the end result is DESSERT NIGHT.

That's right we have a designated dessert night. Every Wednesday night we have something special for dessert. Sometimes it is something really simple like ice cream sundays, other times I go all out and make something elaborate like apple cinnamon crepes flambe. Yes, I set dessert on fire. You want to impress your kids? Set dessert on fire, instantly you are a cool mom.

The whining has stopped. If it isn't Wednesday there really isn't any point in asking for dessert, of course they find lots of other things to whine about like cleaning their bedrooms. Even better the weight came off and I was eating dessert on a regular basis. My will power has improved a lot now that I know I have something to look forward to. If I am craving sweets big time I will have a small treat like a Hershey's Kiss or a biscotti, but usually I will just look through recipes trying to decide what I really want this week. Since I am the cook it is always something I want to eat.

This week I wanted donuts, not berliners (jelly donuts), real plain old fashioned donuts, but there doesn't seem to be a Dunkin' Donuts, J.CO, or Crispy Creme in Frankfurt. If there is, don't tell me, it's better that I don't know. What to do? I made my own donuts. I used a recipe for beignets to make the dough. Instead of the traditional powdered sugar topping I glazed some of them with milk glaze (2 teaspoons hot milk and a half a cup of confectioners sugar) the rest I covered in cinnamon sugar. As you can see I can't find my donut cutter so I just cut squares and triangles. They might look funny but they tasted just fine!