I Heart Mom

Just in time for Mother's Day!  Show Mom your sweet side with a twist on Breakfast in Bed.  Present her with a big box full of sunny-hued hearts, each with a personalized message.

All you need is a dozen of Mel-O-Cream's Heart-shaped Donuts and some endearing messages you've been waiting to express on an edible canvas. 

Since Mother's Day falls smack-dab in the middle of the Spring, you can't go wrong with an assortment of pastel flat icings.  We chose white, pink, and buttercup. But mint, sky blue, and lilac are also big favorites.

You can be as ornate or simplistic as your heart desires.  But if you've got a typical Mom on your hands, make sure you've spelled all of your words correctly -- she'll notice right away!

Donuts That Make a Statement

Want to show your support for a special cause?  Got a sweet tooth?  Well Donut YOUniversity has the perfect project for you!  At your next meeting or fundraiser, why not bring along some iced cinnamon-twist Awareness Donuts?

These are so simple to make.  All you need is Mel-O-Cream Cinnamon Twist frozen dough, flat white icing, and food coloring to make your favorite colors.

Donuts That Make a Statement

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There are literally hundreds of causes that make use of colorful ribbons as a means of promoting awareness.  Here are just a few that can easily be transferred to an edible ribbon: 

• Heart Disease Awareness - Red                                  
• Tsunami Awareness - Teal
• Autism Awareness - Puzzle Piece
• Osteoporosis Awareness - White
• Lupus Awareness - Purple                                           
• Asthma Awareness - Gray
• Sickle Cell Awareness - Burgundy                                
• Breast Cancer Awareness - Pink
• Support Local Police - Blue                                         
• Cerebral Palsy Awareness -  Green Ribbon
• AIDS and HIV Awareness - Red                                
• ALS Awareness - Blue and White Pinstriped
• Alzheimer's Awareness - Purple                                   
• Lung Cancer Awareness - Pearl
• Substance Abuse Awareness - Red                             
• Support for the March of Dimes - Purple
• Environmental Awareness - Green
• Armed Forces/ Veterans Awareness - Yellow  
• Birth Defects Awareness - Pink and Blue
• Mental Illness Awareness - Green
• Leukemia and Lymphoma Awareness - Orange
• Arthritis Awareness - Blue
• Child Abuse Prevention Awareness - Light Blue
• Save the People of Darfur - Green
• Disabled Adults Awareness - Burgundy
• Gay Pride Awareness - Rainbow
• Support Anti-War - White
• Support Freedom of Speech - Blue
• Diabetes Awareness - Gray
• Down Syndome Awareness - Blue and Yellow
• Diversity Awareness - Black and White
• Haiti Recovery Awareness - Red and Blue
• Zombie Awareness - Gray

You can also personalize your ribbons by adding supportive messages or names.  Just remember that the more ornate your cinnamon twist ribbons become, the more time the project will take to complete.

Egg-ceptional Donuts

Easter is just around the corner, and that means that customers will hop on down to your store or bakery to purchase some tasty pastries for their early morning festivities: family get-togethers, church functions, volunteering outings, etc.  Customers want something quick but still special, and won't ruin their appetites in preparation for a big holiday lunch or dinner.  Why not showcase a fun and effortless design representative of the secular side of the Easter tradition?  What are we talking about eggs-actly?  Well at Donut YOUniversity we're making decorative delights that you don't have to hard boil.

To start, you'll need to thaw some Mel-O-Cream Oval-Shaped Shells.  This shape is so versatile: we'll show you what we mean in later posts.  While you wait for your unpainted eggs to thaw, start preparing your icing.  A traditional flat white icing works very well here -- as most eggs are white, of course.  But, you can add food coloring to your white icing to create a multitude of motley hues.  We recommend adding a conservative amount of color to render more of a pastel tint.

Now it's time to decorate some eggs!  Pastels are always a favorite during this season.  Just remember that most brands of gel icing do not offer pastel colors.  You may have to mix your flat icing by hand to achieve the desired color. 

Next, put one of your colors into a piping bag.  For quick and easy designs, a fine-tip applicator is recommended.  However, if your are a decorating wizard, you may opt for other tips with more flare.  Keep in mind that you will be decorating AT LEAST a dozen of these eggs, so stick with designs that can be completed in a single stroke or line from one end to the other, like this egg above.

 And there you have it!  And just like your other eggs, you may need to hide a few for yourself before they are all hunted down!

Krazy for Kabobs

Today, Donut YOUniversity is celebrating Something On a Stick Day.  Yes, there really is a National Holiday dedicated to skewered vittles.  So, we're going to show you how easy it is to make your favorite edibles portable. 

What you'll need:

• Your Favorite Mel-O-Cream Donuts Donut Holes
• Finishing Sugars or Cinnamons
• Glaze
• Icing
• Sprinkles
• Wooden Skewers
• Scissors
• Wax Paper

We'll show you 3 different ways to prepare Donut Kabobs. 

First, prepare a batch of your favorite donut holes by warming them in the oven at 375 degrees for no more than 30 seconds.  Once the donut holes are thawed, select one of these options to prepare them:

Krazy for Kabobs: Sugar, Spice, Oh So Nice!

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Krazy for Kabobs: Glazed Over Expressions

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Krazy for Kabobs: Quick Dip

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And remember, once you've created your kabobs, you'll need containers long enough to store them properly for your customers.  So enjoy your poppable pastries on a stick today!

Caramel-Glazed Butter Pecan Donuts

National Pecan Day is March 25, and to celebrate this wholesome nut of the Mid and Southwest, Mel-O-Cream Donuts makes every March its Butter Pecan Cake Donut Month.  These rich cake donuts have smooth, creamy taste and a hint of pecan on the pallet.  It’s as comforting as comfort food can get.

If you want to add a little more decadence to these donuts, why not try topping them with caramel icing?  Your distributor can provide you caramel icing, or you can contact Mel-O-Cream Donuts.  In past entries, Donut YOUniversity has shown you how to top your donuts with icing the good-old-fashioned way.  Now, we’re going to show you how to drizzle icing onto your cake donuts.

Our experts agree that glazing your donuts before you drizzle caramel icing is the perfect accent.  The glaze provides a sugary-sweet base, followed by a slightly more savory caramel dappling: this choice accompanies the Butter Pecan donut in an ideal concert of flavors.

First, while you wait for a tray of Butter Pecan cake donuts to thaw, prepare your glazing according to manufacturer’s instructions.  Once the donuts have thawed, coat the top of each with the glaze by brushing it onto the face of the donut or dipping it into the container of glaze.  We recommend glazing all of the donuts before you move on to drizzling the caramel icing.

Next, prepare your caramel icing so that it is the correct consistency.  You can tell it’s ready if you can make ribbons of icing by lifting your mixer or spatula.  If it creates lines or “ribbons” from your utensil back to the bowl, then you can create the drizzle pattern on your donuts. 

NOTE:  According to food preparation laws and regulations, all food products sold to the public should be prepared with gloved hands. 

Take your gloved hand and place your fingers into the container of caramel icing.  Your fingers should be slightly spaced apart.  Keeping your fingers still, pull your hand out of the icing.  Notice how the icing ribbons off of each of your fingers?  This is the effect you want to create on your donuts.  Move your hand (not your fingers!) approximately 6-12 inches over the donuts in a rocking or circular motion.  Remember, your fingers should remain steady: think of them as a paint brush that you guide over your edible canvasses.

And in case your customers may have food-specific allergies, it would be a great idea to let them know that although our Butter Pecan donuts taste like pecans, all of our items are 100% peanut and nut-free!

Lucky Four-Leaf Donuts

Looking for a way to make your donut case more interesting this St. Patrick's Day?  Not looking to spend a lot to do it?  No problem!  Make four-leaf clovers from yeast-raised donuts! 

Here's what you need:

• Heart-shaped, yeast-raised donuts -- If your distributor does not carry them, contact Mel-O-Cream for information
• White flat icing
• Green food coloring
• Other food coloring or different colored gel icings (optional)
• Colored sugars (optional)
• Sprinkles (optional)
• Piping bag

Four-leafed Donuts

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For the Pot of Gold, we used yellow round jimmies.  You can substitute gel icings for flat icing if you do not have piping bags or other food colorings.

The clovers should fit in most dozen-donut boxes; however, a cake box will also provide enough room for this design. 
 

So enjoy your Lucky Four-leaf Donuts!  And did we mention that they are the perfect compliment to your mug of green beer?

Kick-Up Your King Cakes

Fat Tuesday is quickly approaching, ladies and gents.  Have you been thinking about how to decorate your King Cakes?

For those of you who have never participated in this New Orleans tradition, the King Cake originated from a Catholic festival.  The King's Cake (as it was called) symbolizes the journey of the Three Kings to Bethlehem.  According to the story, they traveled for 12 days, arriving at Bethlehem on the day in which we celebrate Mardi Gras.  French and Spanish settlers introduced this custom to the New Orleans region, and this sweet and spicy confection has been a mainstay of Carnival cuisine ever since.

Not sure how to decorate a King Cake?  It's very simple -- and a lot of fun!  Mel-O-Cream provides customers with everything they need in a King Cake Kit, complete with multicolored sugars, beads, and the obligatory plastic baby.  If you don't have the kit, here's what you'll need:

• King Cake dough
• Flat White Icing
• Sugars in traditional Mardi Gras colors, such as gold, green, purple, and magenta
• Strands of plastic beads
• The Plastic Baby

Note:  The Baby is the quintessential decoration of the King Cake.  In some traditions, finding the baby inside the cake is good luck and the recipient is granted a wish.  Others consider the plastic baby to connote the Baby Jesus.  While others insist that this is just the most interesting part of the King Cake.  So beware - no baby could mean dissatisfied Mardi Gras enthusiasts!

The most important thing to remember about Mardi Gras is that you are encouraged to indulge that sweet tooth.  So get carried away with your King Cake: slather on those sugars and embellish with beads!  After all, it's only once a year, right?

Sweet Hearts for Your Valentine's Day Sweetheart

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner.  And how can you show your loved ones you care without breaking the bank?  How about Valentine Donuts – they’re very simple to design and you can create an annual tradition that is both personal

                                                        and thoughtful.

Start by thawing a dozen of Mel-O-Cream’s Heart-Shaped Shells.  Yes, these yeast-raised sweets are pre-cut into hearts before you  receive them – talk about your cutting corners!  

While you wait for these Valentines to thaw, you should start thinking about how you would like them to look as, literally, a finished product.  Do you go pink or red or white?  Are you going to add some intricate lacework around the edges or candies across the top?  Another favorite among our customers is making a multi-colored assortment of pastel hearts reminiscent of the popular candy hearts.  Keep in mind that the more intricate the design, the more time you will spend per donut.

 

What we’ve done here is top the hearts with an electric pink flat icing.  This was made with white icing and red food coloring.  Pink icing is much easier to render than red.  This is because white flat icing contains titanium dioxide or white pigment that makes it more difficult to alter the original color of the icing.  So even though you’ve added a large amount of red food coloring to your icing, it may result in a very pink pigment.  But not to worry, just continue to add red food coloring gradually to your icing until you achieve the tint of choice, like this cherry blush icing shown here.

Next, we added the same icing to a bag and composed our messages of fondness onto the hearts.  Check out the slides below for some ideas:

Design those valentines

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Here’s a quick tip if you wanted to add roses to your donuts:  Ask your cake decorator to make some roses with a butter cream based frosting.  These frostings stiffen quickly and will take form easier than the flat donut icing.  These roses can be made a few days ahead of time, so long as they are immediately refrigerated.  But if you want to learn how to make butter cream roses, our friends at Wilton have a very thorough pictorial procedure on their website.  If you choose to refrigerate them, we recommend dusting the pan with powdered sugar to ensure that they will not stick to the bottom.  Anyone who's made this mistake knows that you'll end up with a rosy mess!

These Sweet Hearts are sure to please on V-Day!

Let's Build Some Doughmen!

Who doesn’t like building snowmen?  Well, except for those who can’t stand the cold.  This is a fun little project that you can do, or you can have children make on a cold winter’s day – and don’t have to go outside to enjoy.

For this project, we used Mel-O-Cream's yeast-raised trees.  These donuts come to you as frozen dough or pre-fried.  There is a myriad of possibilities that spring forth from these trees.  You'll find out just how versatile all of our shapes are throughout the months to come.

As always, make sure your donuts are completely thawed out, as condensation can easily melt this snowman's icing!  When you've made certain that each donut has thawed, you can begin to top your Doughmen with a nice flat, white icing.

Adorning Your Doughmen:

As always, if you wish to add anything to flat icing, you need to be mindful that the flat icing will set in 10-30 seconds.  Because this project may take you more time to decorate, we recommend adding your sprinkles, jimmies, and candies before you apply any other icing.  For example, we added this doughman's little blue buttons directly after coating him in snow white icing.

Once the flat, white icing has set, you can start decorating your snowmen with the colored icing of your choice.  We chose a chocolate flat icing piped into a bag with a small, round-tipped applicator.  You can also use gel icing, as many come prepackaged with an applicator.  First, draw lines across the points where the donut puckers in: one across the top for the brim of the hat, a slightly curved line across the second pucker to frame the face or create a scarf, and the last line at the base.  This gives the illusion of three stacked snowballs. 

Go back to the first line and add a top for that top hat.  You can accomplish this simply by adding a rectangle or horseshoe shape to the line and fill it in with the same color of icing.  Eyes made out of coal?  How about chocolate icing instead!  Or you could substitute candies for the eyes.  For the nose, we mixed orange food coloring with white icing.  Red Hots and Candy Corn are also favorites.  And, of course, give that dougman a great big smile.

Overall, these doughmen took just a minute a piece to decorate.  It's up to you regarding how dapper your doughmen will look.  Just remember that more flair means more time to prepare.  Bring these guys to your next office or PTA meeting.  They're a real icebreaker!

Sugar-Coated Lemon Drop Donuts

Not only does Mel-O-Cream offer its cake ring donuts in a variety of delectable flavors, but in its donut holes as well.  Today, we’re going to learn how to make powdered Lemon Drop Donut Holes.  Watch this video on finishing donut holes with sugar.



Warning: Our Powdered Donuts Are Not Coated with Powdered Sugar!

Ask your distributor if they carry a Donut Coating Sugar.  This is the optimum variety of coating to use for lemon donuts holes, as it has been formulated to withstand the moisture and fat of the donuts.  Donut Coating sugar is made from Dextrose, corn starch, and oil as well as possible flavors and or colors. Do not use powdered sugar; regular powdered sugar will melt due to the fat and moisture.  One interesting feature of Dextrose is the cooling sensation felt when it is applied to your tongue.  You will not get this from Sucrose (Powdered Sugar): instead, you would get a warming sensation. Powdered sugar is a disaccharide made up of Fructose and Dextrose, Fructose being sweeter than Sucrose and Dextrose only being 70% as sweet as Sucrose.

But, if you’re stubborn and still choose to use powdered sugar, make certain that the donut holes are completely thawed out and warmed.  If they are not, condensation can occur, and you will not attain proper sugar adhesion.

Warning:  Save Your Holes!  

Since donut holes have far less surface area than regular cake donuts (even though Mel-O-Cream's Donut Holes are Gargantuan!), they are more prone to dry out.  Therefore, it is imperative that you package  

                                                          your donut holes properly. 

These bite-sized delights take only minutes to prepare.  Have your customers line up with your Sugar-Coated Lemon Drops!

Easy Peasy Lemon Squeezy Cake Donuts

Here at Mel-O-Cream, we offer our celebrated Donut of the Month.  For more information on our flavors and what time of year to expect them, go to our website here.  The month of January welcomes one of our customers’ favorite flavors of cake donut: Lemon.

These donuts have a very clean and zesty citrus flavor.  And you can easily add some visual zest to your donuts by finishing the top of your lemon cake ring donuts in bold, yellow icing.

What we’ve done here is topped our tasty treats with vanilla icing combined with yellow food coloring.  It’s very easy to transform any plain vanilla icing into any hue you choose.  First, warm the icing to the recommended temperature.  Then, slowly add your selected food coloring a few drops at a time.  Your goal is to make a color that is slightly lighter than the color you actually wish to achieve.  This is because the icing will darken a shade when warmed up to the appropriate usage temperature.

Remember This:  Not all food colorings are created equal.  So don’t throw in all the color at once!  Instead, a gradual blending of color to the icing will guarantee the correct tint.

If you really want to add a kick to your lemon cake donuts, you can use a lemon frosting.  Ask your distributor if they carry this flavor of icing; if not, you may need to improvise.  Here's an idea:  after obtaining the desired yellow color for your vanilla icing, simply add some lemon flavoring from your spice section. 

Remember That:  A little goes a LONG way when it comes to lemon flavoring, so use sparingly.

After finishing the donuts with this canary-colored icing, we added a smattering of saffron sprinkles.

Remember Again:  Sprinkles will fall off if the icing has set, so only finish a couple at a time.

And voila!  Easy-Peasy-Lemon-Squeezy cake donuts!