strawberries + almonds

It's my duty as an older sister to embarrass my siblings. I have three of them, but my first brother is one of my favorites to pick on. We're complete, total, absolute opposites. Sometimes I think he forms opinions simply to counteract and make fun of mine. However, the funny thing is that we're the closest to each other than to our other siblings. We're good buddies and we make each other laugh and have good conversations. It's not that we dislike our other siblings (most of the time...), it's just that they're so much younger than both of us. My brother and I are in high school and we're in the same season of life so we find more similarities and things to talk about on a daily basis than our younger siblings who are in the middle of and just beginning junior high.

So, anyways, back to making fun of my brother. He used to *loooove* the color pink. I think he wanted to be different than the other kids, to be unique, to stand out. He's always been that way. He prefers classical music over anything with words, the show "Jeopardy!" over any sort of action series, reading the news on his phone rather than goofing off on Snapchat (he's proclaimed many a time that he despises social media), but if there's one thing that makes him normal, that kid sure loves his video games. But his love for pink was a short phase. It was cute, he loved his salmon shirts and loved to tell anyone who would listen that he preferred pink over any other color. That child loved pink in that short time more than I have in my entire life. I'm totally not making fun of the fact that it was the color pink he enjoyed, more the fact that he was so passionate about it. I'm all for kids enjoying whatever toys, kids, dress up, etc. that they can. You do you, kiddos!

Maybe that story was a poor lead in for a doughnut recipe. I called this my hot pink nutty berry doughnut while I was making it because I thought it was funny. I wanted it to be in your face and almost obnoxiously pink because I felt like my doughnuts were a little boring and needed amping up. Of course you may not agree considering my last doughnut including jalapenos, but I digress. I added the pink food coloring to the glaze and made sure it popped against the boring beige of the almonds. It turned out like I wanted it to for sure. Here's the recipe!

This doughnut recipe uses the brioche dough, found here.

for the glaze:
2 cups powdered sugar
2 tsp strawberry extract
1/4 cup milk
pink food coloring (optional)

Mix all ingredients together until smooth.

for the toppings:
1 1/2 cups strawberries, sliced into fourths
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1/4 cup water

1 cup slivered almonds

Coat the strawberries in sugar and place into a large pan. Cook on medium high heat until the sugar begins to bubble. Take off the heat and let the strawberries cool slightly. (I baked them, which you could do, but I learned that I needed to cut them smaller and cook them on a stove top because this method ended up with me burning myself... multiple times.)

for the assembly:

Dip the fried doughnut tops into the glaze and let it sit for a few seconds until slightly sticky but not dripping. Top the doughnut with the cooked strawberries, slivered almonds and drizzle any leftover glaze on top.


Here's a printable version of this recipe!

There you have it! 'Til next time,