Donuts

Another one that shocked me in how good they turned out. If it weren't for the fact that it is an enormous pain to put together a frying rig (and fryers are a pain to maintain and clean) I would do these waaaay more often.

Based off of another Good Eats recipe (found here) along with a different recipe for the glaze (found here) - the only wrinkle I added was to make some of my donuts into sticks, and to turn some of those sticks into peanut sticks (per a request).

Not going to go into a bunch of detail on the dough, other then to note that, using the amounts written, it comes out VERY sticky. Expect to add a good deal of flour when kneading and rolling. Also note that these are yeast donuts, so have a raising rig ready (I cover the dough in a metal mixing bowl I set in a sink full of hot water).

Roll out your dough, and use a pair of round molds (biscuit cutters) to cut out your donuts - use a big one and a small one. Shoot for 2.5 inches for the outer ring and close to an inch for the middle (my set of cutters didn't come with anything smaller than 1.5 inches - instead I used the tube/sheath from my frying thermometer - worked great. As with anything like this, once you've gotten as many as you can get, recombine the dough, re-roll, and cut more.

For my frying rig, I put a bunch (a quart? I don't remember) in a dutch oven, using a frying thermometer to track temperature (temperature control is important, be ready to adjust the heat to keep things around 375 degrees - never below 365). Cook the donuts in batches of 4 (add 1 at a time so they don't stick together, and only in batches of 4 so you don't risk dropping the heat too much). Let them cook for 1 minute per side before flipping (use a pair of skewers to flip and remove). You're going to discover that you have enough dough for a TON of these, so be ready to be at this for a while.

Now these are awesome as-is, but you can also make a glaze for them pretty easily. Basically heat a little milk and vanilla in a saucepan and use it to reduce 2 cups of powdered sugar (sugar dissolves in shockingly small amounts of liquid when heated). When done, remove from the stove-top, but keep on heat of some kind to keep it from cooling down. For the peanut sticks, take the freshly glazed donut and roll it in some crushed/powdered peanut (I should have processed these a bit more).

Storage wise I haven't figured these quite out - airtight containers will keep them tender, but you lose the nice fried crust - I didn't try something like a paper bag out of the concern they'd dry out, but realistically that would work really well.

One of my other big problems was figuring out what to do with the oil. You're supposed to be able to filter it and store it in the fridge (let it 'thaw' before using again). My problem was in the 'filter part' - my container had a small opening, meaning I couldn't use a large sieve, and coffee filters and cheesecloth are painfully slow. Anyway.

Time: 2 Hours
Difficulty: 4/5
Cleanup: 4/5
Taste: 5/5