Good Press

  These are the easiest doughnuts I've ever made -- you could whip them up on a Sunday morning before church or, if you're really quick, on a weekday before school. My friends were passing this recipe for Betty Crocker's Baked Pumpkin Doughnuts around Facebook last fall. I baked mine in my Pampered Chef Silicone Floral Cupcake Pan . The photos didn't turn  out well enough for you to see the cool designs. BAKED PUMPKIN DOUGHNUTS 2 cups Bisquick® Complete pancake & waffle mix 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice 1/3 cup milk 1/3 cup canned pumpkin (not pumpkin pie mix) 1 tablespoon real maple or maple-flavored syrup 1 teaspoon vanilla 1/4 cup sugar 1 teaspoon ground cinnamon 2 tablespoons butter, melted Heat oven to 425°F. Spray mini do...

I have a board on Pinterest titled "Pure Evil Food." It contains the most decadent, nutritionally void recipes I find to separate them from recipes with average or exceptional nutritional value. Whenever I make and share one of these recipes, my friends gush and also tease me about being evil. My 9-year-old daughter is in the running for the Evil title. One night this week when she had no homework and no extracurricular activities, she looked through a cookbook and found a recipe for from-scratch Cupcake Sliders. There's a whole stick of butter in the batter. She made them with only a little help from me. And though she is still learning how to follow directions to the letter, they still turned out just fine. You can fill them with Nutella or another chocolate-hazelnut spread or canned or homemade chocolate frosting. We used Nutella. I apologize for not taking photos of her creative process. I was making pumpkin chili at the same time. CUPCAKE SLIDERS 2 cups ...

One way to put a special touch on a holiday table is to mold the butter. I used my collectible Pampered Chef stoneware cookie molds that were just taking up room in my cupboard to make molded butter for Thanksgiving dinner. We set six tables at the community feast and each table got it's own heart-shaped butter. The technique is simple. 1. Place your stoneware mold in the freezer for 20-30 minutes. 2. At the same time, set out a stick of butter to soften for 20-30 minutes. 3. Remove the mold from the freezer and unwrap the butter. 4. Using the heel of your hand or the back of a metal spoon, smoosh the butter into the mold evenly. 5. Refrigerate the mold with the butter until the butter is firm. 6. Run a knife's thin blade around the outside of the butter, then use the tip of the knife to carefully pry up the butter in corner. Turn it out onto a plate. I wrapped my butter hearts individually to protect them from odors. I packed them in a plastic lidded container to store and tr...