Doughnuts or Donuts? I really should have done this a while ago...

I think I like the second spelling, but the first is probably "correct." Anyway, the beauty of this whole diet thing were doing is that we get saturday "off" and eat whatever, and as much of whatever we want as we can. We made donuts twice (ever) in October and the first time was a TOTAL disaster so I thought I'd post our recipe and the things we learned that made round 2 MUCH more sucessful.

All the pictures are from round 2 which happened to fall on halloween... I don't think we could survived round one if I'd been trying to take pictures at the same time.

Even though we decorated these in halloween colors they are actually Egg Nog flavored donuts and perfect for your holiday enjoyment. Before you get too excited about making these guys tomorrow. PLEASE make sure you have a candy thermometer. I did not in round one, and my idea of "winging it" was not successful. We filled our apartment with smoke, probably annoyed all of our neighbors, and had Maizey begging for her kennel for the first time in her life.

So now, here is the correct way to make donuts, or at least one sucessful method for CAKE (not yeast) donuts.

Adapted from an apple cider donut recipe. (Sean swears he hates apples and apple cider so we switched it out for egg nog)

4 T room temp butter

1 cup granuated sugar

2 large eggs

1/2 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup eggnog

3 1/2 cups flour

2 tsp. baking powder

1 teaspoon baking soda

1/2 tsp ground cinnamon

1/2 tsp. salt

1/8 tsp ground nutmeg

1. In an electric mixer, beat butter and sugar together until light and fluffy.

2. Add eggs, one at time until just incorporated

3. Slowly beat in the buttermilk and eggnog

4. Add the remaining dry ingredients in small increments and beat until fully incorporated. The dough will be exceptionally wet and seem unmanageable. Just stick with me (cue pictures)

5. Line a baking sheet or 9x13 pan (whatever fits in your freezer) with wax paper and spray the wax paper with PAM. Then spoon your dough onto your pan, its sticky and gross!

6. Now, spray another sheet of wax paper with PAM and cover your sticky mess of dough. Then you can take your hands and smush the dough into aprox 1/3 inch (I mean more than 1/4 inch and less than 1/2 inch)thickness. (note, if you use a 9x13 pan to fit in your freezer you might need to actually use 2 pans)

 

7. Once the dough is flattened pop it in the freezer for about 30 minutes to get nice and firm.

8. Pull your dough out of the freezer and cut into donut shapes, you can buy a donut cutter, or use 2 sizes of round cutters, which is what i did. Line another baking sheet with Pam'ed wax paper (this one only has to fit in the fridge) to lay your cut donuts on. Cover with another sprayed sheet before chilling.

9. Chill in the fridge for at least 2 hours. I did steps 1- 9 the night before we fried them up so I left them in the fridge overnight.

FRYING

I used crisco as my fry medium. Smittenkitchen says the logic behind this is it keeps your donuts less greasy at room temp... there are CERTAINLY "healthier" frying methods so if you want to go with oil do it. This is where you need the candy thermometer, and its REALLY important to keep your oil/crisco at 350* (aka fries on my thermometer).

If your oil gets too hot IT WILL smoke up your house and burn the outside of raw donuts. If your oil is too cool your donuts will cook too slowly and be gross and greasy. Just plan for some tester donuts to get your timing and temp right.

Then add one or 2 donuts to the oil and cook on one side for about a minute on one side, they will float to the top and turn golden brown as they cook. Flip and cook for an additional 30 to 60 seconds. (The handle of a wooden spoon works well to flip your donuts.) I repeat: plan for some tester donuts to get your timing and temp right. You'll want to keep the sheet of donuts in the fridge while your fying. As the dough warms up, it gets very difficult to work with. Once you get it down though, the frying goes pretty quickly and you are ready to frost and eat!

FROSTING   Some people are strong proponents of eating cake donuts plain, others wait until they are cool enough to touch, but still hot and roll them in cinnamon sugar. The Collins' however believe that if you are going to do something you need to go all the way, and we topped ours with simple glaze made from powdered sugar, milk, vanilla and chocolate for me, and orange tinted maple for Sean.

Like a lot of things I do, there is no real recipe for this... just mix your powdered sugar with milk (or heavy cream) and vanilla, or coco powder, or maple extract, or pepermint or whatever you want until you have a smooth yet runny consistency. I let ours cool totally and then dipped them in. They aren't donut shop perfect, but they were good! Note: If you love egg nog (which I don't) you could totally make a glaze with powdered sugar, and egg nog and maybe some alcoholic additives instead of milk... haven't tried it, but I think someone should!

And there you have my dissertation on donuts (err doughnuts).