The quintessential symbol of school and teachers – the apple.  I (aka. Maureen – I hijacked the Ruff Draft this week) wanted to come up with a treat that your kiddos can bring to their teacher for the first week of school (or anytime, really!), but didn’t want it to be too complicated.

Pinterest has some amazing apple treats from cake pops and truffles to decorated sugar cookies that look like apples…. I just didn’t have it in me!  Plus, this is the RUFF DRAFT ya’ll, so you know we have to come up with something original that hasn’t been done (at least that we can tell!).
So for all the mamas that want to do something nice for their teachers but only have about a half hour to do so… this post is for you!

An apple a day keeps the doctor away, right?  How about an Apple Decorated Donut that is actually a cupcake?
(Wouldn’t these be perfect for the first day of school, teacher’s appreciation week, graduation or any school day for your teachers!?)

So, I had every intention to share a delicious doughnut (or “donut” – how do you spell that word anyhow!?) recipe here on the blog and then decorate it like an apple so that it could be the perfect first day of school treat for your kids and their teacher.  Well, I opened my pantry to get out all the ingredients and I had a rush of laziness once I spotted the Trader Joes baking mix that I hadn’t tried out.  Whew, was I glad!  That mix is the most delicious tasting cupcake / baking mix I’ve ever bought (and I really don’t buy box mixes except the organic / good ones!)

So, I guess my donut is actually a faux-nut, since its technically a cupcake shaped like a donut.  Even better!

INSTRUCTIONS
I had a few options once I came up with the idea to make a donut (doughnut- how do you spell it?) that was decorated like an apple for the teachers.
1) Go to the donut store and buy some plain donuts and just decorate it like an apple
2) Use cupcake batter (in our case we used the Trader Joes vanilla baking mix, which was DELICIOUS and so easy!)
or 3) Find a great recipe for a homemade donut and make it in my donut shaped baking pan

I went for the “middle of the road” effort option, 3.

INGREDIENTS & MATERIALS
– Donut Shaped Baking Pan (Prepare with butter for grease and flour)
– Trader Joe’s Vanilla Baking Mix
– Eggs
– Butter
– Milk
– Powdered Sugar
– Red Food Coloring
– Pretzel Sticks and Green Jelly Beans or M&Ms
– Optional – Gummy Worms 😉

STEPS
STEP 1) So simple – mix up the Trader Joes baking mix, melted butter, egg and milk (I chose to use Almond milk because we love it).
STEP 2) Spoon the batter into prepared donut pans.  NOTE – make sure to grease AND flour the pans otherwise the donuts seem to have a hard time coming out.
STEP 3) Bake per instructions on the mix box.  We baked ours until they were a tiny bit golden so they held their shape better.
STEP 4) Mix up some red icing using powdered sugar and milk and red food coloring.  I did about 1 cup of powdered sugar and 2 T. milk. You have to work with it a little to get it not too thick and not too thin.  Add more powdered sugar to thicken, or milk to thin out.
STEP 5) Once the donut/faux-nut cupcakes are cooled, use a piping bag and pipe around and around with the icing starting at the center and going towards the outer edge.
STEP 6) Stick a pretzel stick in the top and 2 green candies (M and Ms, Jelly Beans or whatever you can find) for leaves.

Optional: Add a gummy worm coming out of the hole 😉 (Thanks to my sweet friend, Caryn, for adding that last minute idea!)

Done!  Now go impress your teachers and have a great school year!

 The takeaway here – Time to use your donut pan with muffin or cupcake mix and make these adorable apple cupcake donuts!

Don’t forget to check out our other school related posts.  Most recently, our Teacher Survival Kit, Trendy School Labels…oh and our adorable back to school photoshoot ….