Rainy days are made for baking

Wait, did I say baking?  I mean working...  Because that is what I did today... ya.... worked.

I "worked from home" today (wait, I thought you were a scientist... how do you do that from home?).  We all know working from home isn't a thing.

But in all seriousness, I have to give a lecture to an undergraduate human nutrition and disease class on the gut microbiome and diet (google it, super interesting) in a few weeks, and need to have a rough draft of it by Friday. So I figured if I was just going to be reading papers and working on a power point, I could do that from the comfort of my couch while watching the rain over San Francisco with my fuzzy babies snuggled up next to me.  Oh ya, it has been raining for 2 days straight here with no sign of letting up.  Awesome.

However, the rain isn't particularly conducive to wanting to do work.  It is more conducive to baking.  So that is what I did.

My lovely roommate had eaten a green tea donut somewhere a few months ago, and texted me about it, emphatically insisting that we try making them sometime.  Luckily, my lovely sister gave me a mini donut pan for Christmas a couple of years back.  I immediately fell in love.  Every donut making experience has been such a joy, both to make and to eat, and the donuts have always been a big hit whenever I take them somewhere.  So far I have done vanilla, chocolate, pumpkin spice, and apple cider.  Now to add green tea to the list!  I picked up some matcha powder a little while back and today was the day for it to make its way into some mini donuts.

Now, after much searching, there just don't seem to be any recipes for green tea donuts out there.  Much less vegan ones.  So I started with a somewhat basic baked mini donut recipe, veganized it, and then matchaized it (that last one isn't a word...).  I bestow upon you a delicious recipe for vegan green tea baked mini donuts!

Green Tea Donuts

Baked.  Vegan.  Mini

Materials:

• 1 tablespoon ground flax
• 2 tablespoons water
• 1 1/2 cup all purpose flour
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup agave nectar
• 2 teaspoons baked powder
• 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
• 2 tablespoons green tea powder
• pinch of salt
• 1/2 cup coconut milk
• 1/4 dairy-free "butter"
• 1 tablespoon vanilla
• mini donut pan

Methods:

1. Preheat oven to 350.
2. Mix the ground flax seed with water and set aside for a few minutes.
3. Mix together all of the dry ingredients.
4. Add the remaining wet ingredients to the flax seed.
5. Add the wet ingredients to the dry and mix just until combined.
6. Transfer ingredients to ziplock bag and cut the corner off, creating a make-shift pastry bag.
7. Pipe the batter into the donut pan, one generous swirl per donut, filling it about 3/4 full.
8. Bake at 350 for 8 minutes.
9. Repeat steps 7 and 8 until all of the batter is used (makes 36 mini donuts).
10. Eat at least 6 immediately.
11. Enjoy!

Optional (I did this for half of the batch and actually prefer it like this): 

• Dunk(in) donuts (like that Boston reference?) in melted "butter" and then toss in sugar with a few dashes of green tea powder.