i am a food blog

Do you guys ever picture something coming out perfectly? Maybe this is a weird quirk of mine, but sometimes I’ll day dream about dishes. I’ll obsess over the ingredients, the way the finished product is going to look and how it’s going to taste. Usually, when I do this, it ends in disaster. Once, I invited my in-laws over for pizza. This was when I just started cooking and I wasn’t really too confident in the kitchen. I thought about the toppings, the dough, the logistics of baking off pizzas while they were over, how I set the table, everything.

Of course, on the day that we were supposed to have pizza, the oven wasn’t working properly. We went out for dinner. It was fine, but it wasn’t homemade pizza. Anyway, something similar happened with these doughnuts. I thought about them and thought about them for so long that when I finally made them, they didn’t look as Totoro as I wanted. I really, really wanted to use glaze-dipped almonds for ears, but the crumb was so tender (usually a good thing) that the almonds wouldn’t hold. I went through 3 doughnuts before I gave up. The only good thing about the broken doughnuts was the fact that I got to stress eat them.

I don’t even know why I cared so much about the almond ears. These Totoro doughnuts weren’t for a party or even someone else – they were just for me. Happily though, I think they kind of came out looking like earless Totoros. They aren’t as über-Totoro as I pictured them, but they were delicious, mainly because I used my favourite Asian dessert ingredient, black sesame, to flavour these guys. If you haven’t had black sesame seeds, they’re similar to regular white sesame, but with a slight taste difference. They’re a bit more nutty, roast-y, and smoky. If you like peanut-y or nutty desserts, you’ll like black sesame!

Baked Black Sesame Donuts Recipe
makes 10 donuts

Donuts

• 1/4 cup toasted black sesame seeds
• 1 cup flour
• 3/4 teaspoon baking powder
• 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
• 1/4 teaspoon salt
• 1/2 cup sugar
• 2 tablespoons melted butter
• 1 large egg
• 1/2 cup + 2 tablespoons buttermilk

Glaze

• 1 1/4 cups powdered sugar
• 3-4 tablespoons milk
• 1 teaspoon vanilla extract
• black food coloring

Place a rack in the upper third of your oven and preheat it to 350°F. Lightly grease or spray a non-stick 6 count doughnut pan.

With a mortar and pestle, grind the sesame seeds until slightly crushed. Whisk together the sesame seeds, flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt in a large bowl.

In a small bowl, whisk the sugar, melted butter, egg, and buttermilk. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and stir until just combined. The batter will be quite thick. Spoon into a ziplock bag, cut off the corner and pipe into the donut wells. Bake for 11-12 minutes, until slightly brown and an inserted toothpick comes out dry. Let cool for 5 minutes before turning out onto a cooling rack.

Make the glaze: Mix together all of the ingredients until smooth. If needed, adjust viscosity: add more powdered sugar (by the teaspoon) to make the glaze thicker and more milk (by the teaspoon) to make it thinner.

Spoon out two small bowls of glaze and set them aside. Tint one bowl black and leave the other white. You’ll use these for Totoro’s eyeballs, nose and whiskers.

Tint the remaining glaze grey. Dip the doughnuts to glaze and set glaze side up on a tray. Use a piping bag or ziplock back with the tip cut of and pipe on white eyeballs as well as body whiskers. Use the black glaze to put in the pupils, nose and face whiskers. Enjoy!

black sesamedonutstotorototoro week