“Two fingers,” he’d say, holding two gnarled, deeply tanned digits up to his glass.
Reaching into the sideboard cabinet, he pulled out a half empty bottle. He poured two fingers worth of brown liquor into the rocks glass and I followed, holding the carton with two hands and topping the booze with at least two more fingers of eggnog. Some years it was Wild Turkey and others Crown Royal, but always whiskey with eggnog.
Like a lot of Japanese-American men of his generation, my grandpa wasn’t a super talkative man, but he’d sit at the kitchen table and shoot the s**t over a glass of spiked eggnog, getting chattier as he got deeper into his cups. Even now, there’s nothing like a whiff of whiskey and eggnog and nutmeg to put me right back at that table with him during the holidays.
My grandpa was also the plain cake donut guy in our family, though he usually dipped those in coffee. These baked fauxnuts marry the plain cake donut with the holiday flavors of eggnog (sorry, no booze) to create a toasted coconut spice donut. While we’re not a dairy-free household, I tried So Delicious’ coconut milk based Nog last year and enjoyed it out of the glass, so I thought I’d see how it works in baked goods. It makes for a moist donut and while you don’t get a coconut undertone in the finished product, I used a little more nog to create a glaze and dipped them in toasted coconut. Enjoy!
Heat oven to 375F. Toast coconut over low heat in a non-stick skillet and set aside to cool.
Spray a 6-donut pan with non stick vegetable spray and set aside.
In a medium bowl, whisk together the flour, salt, baking powder and cinnamon. In another bowl, combine canola oil, 1/4c + 3 T. coconut nog, sugar and egg. Add wet ingredients to dry and stir just until combined.
Fill each donut about halfway. Bake for 10-12 minutes. The donuts should spring back lightly to the touch. Let cool for 1-2 minutes and then turn them out onto a cooling rack.
Once cooled, to top the donuts, sift the confectioners sugar into the remaining 1/4 c. of coconut nog and stir. Dip each donut into the nog-sugar mixture and then press lightly into the toasted coconut.