Not-so-catastrophic cooking
Today being National Doughnut Day, it seems an opportune time to post a culinary non-catastrophe from the recent pre-blog past: homemade raised doughnuts!
I used the recipe listed at Erin Cooks and they came out beautifully. I’m typically not one for doughnuts, but these were tasty enough to warrant several. One friend who overindulged has started accusing me of trying to fatten him up for nefarious purposes.
Raised Doughnuts
5 cups all-purpose flour
1/2 cup sugar
1 teaspoon salt
2 packages active dry yeast
1 3/4 cups very warm milk (120º to 130º)
1/3 cup shortening
2 eggs
Vegetable oil
Sugar
Mix 2 cups of flour and all dry ingredients in a large bowl. Add milk, shortening and eggs. Beat on low until combined, and then gradually mix in all remaining flour, scraping the bowl. Cover and place in a warm place for an hour until dough is doubled in size.
Turn out dough onto a heavily floured and roll out to 1/2 inch thickness. Cut with pastry cutters into appropriate sized doughnuts. Cover again and let rise until doubled in size, about 30-40 minutes. Alton Brown notes that any leftover pieces should rest 20 minutes after combining before re-cutting and they will always be tougher than the original batch. I got sick of that and made negative space fried dough pieces which were just as delicious as the round shapes and had interesting corners that were extra crispy.
Heat about 1 to 1.5 gallons of vegetable oil in a dutch oven to 365º. Slide in doughnuts one at a time, waiting a few seconds between doughnuts so that they won’t stick together if they do bump. Flip when the dough turns golden brown, about 1 minute, and cook the other side. Transfer to a cooling rack.
Sugarphobes can eat these straight or you can roll in cinammon sugar or dip in
Glaze
1/4 cup milk
1 tsp vanilla extract
2 cups confectioner’s sugar
Combine milk and vanilla in saucepan and heat until warm. Whisk in sugar. Remove from heat and set over a pan of warm water while you dip in doughnuts. For best results, get out the burn cream and eat while warm.
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