I enjoy baking a lot. I have ever since I was a kid. In a lot of ways, I think baking is just another form of being a Maker: Creating something on your own, and being able to enjoy the results. After a series of successes, I’ve branched out a bit and today’s branch stepped slightly away from baking. I fried some donuts!
I like baking bread. A few weeks ago I decided that instead of baking some rolls or sweet brown bread for a friend, I was going to take on Cinnamon rolls. They turned out delicious and my biggest regret of the experience was not keeping a few more for myself 🙂
Last weekend, on a whim, I decided to make some donuts. I had previous purchased some saffola oil for just such a project and quickly found a recipe to use. For whatever reason, these turned out super liquidy. I don’t know what happened, but I wasn’t able to roll them out. I ended up dropping them from a spoon into the oil. They turned out delicious. So, Hykel suggested that I make donuts again, for someone else.
I mentioned to her that the donuts were best hot, so she countered that I should make them in the morning so she could deliver them right away. I got started while we were getting into The Price is Right. I mixed the dough at commercial breaks.
I used the same recipe, and this time the dough came out pretty firm. I still needed a fair amount of flour for rolling out so it would not stick to my hands. Recipe websites seem to think that everyone owns a fully stocked and equipped kitchen. I didn’t have a donut cutter, so I used a mug and (at the suggestion of Hykel) our candy thermometer’s slip-case. It worked out great.
Frying on an electric range is a pain in the neck. Electric ranges have really lousy temperature control, so getting them up to temperature without going overboard or dropping back below is hard. I managed better this time, but if you’re doing this at home pay close attention.
After frying up about a dozen and a half (actual count lost to time – and stomachs) I realized that these donuts needed a little glaze to them. I’ve made donuts previously that seemed to work fine without anything else. I was about to make more cream-cheese frosting like I’d made on the cinnamon rolls. Instead, I looked up a Donut glaze. I found a nice one that was whole milk, powered sugar, and vanilla. I substituted heavy cream because I didn’t have whole milk.
I really like the way these turned out. Frying can be a bit tricky, but I managed it. I’ve done things like elephant ears in the past, but not recently. It was nice to see these turn out so well.
