What Are Your Homemade Doughnut Secrets?
Photo from Flour On Her Nose via Photograzing
Kiara at the blog Flour On Her Nose calls these homemade doughnuts a "work in progress," but they look pretty perfect to me. Any other doughnut makers out there? What's your secret to the perfect at-home doughnut?
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15 Comments:
I wish i had a doughnut secret. My mom made the BEST "fry cakes," often whipping up a batch for our school-day breakfasts! They were always hot and crunchy on the outside, fragrant in the inside and off the hook with cold milk. Then there would be another tucked into our sack lunches, to be consumed some hours later, room temp now, but still crisp on the outside, delicate within and sweetened after having been dredged through spicy cinnamon sugar. Damn, I wish I had learned that recipe from her!
BobbieAnne at 8:08AM on 07/10/09
Making a good home made donut is my white whale of baking. Whenever I try to whip of a batch, something always seems to go wrong and they either come out flat and dense or something catches fire. Guess there are some thigns I'm just destined not to make for myself.
trialbyfood at 8:48AM on 07/10/09
Although not exactly home-made, my mom would buy a loaf of frozen bread dough from the grocery store, let it sit out a day to de thaw and rise, then cut out donut shapes and fry them up. Very easy, and with a little cinnamon sugar, very awesome results.
CreamCheese at 9:00AM on 07/10/09
My mom did something similar to CreamCheese's mom. We used tubes refrigerated biscuits, though. Already cut to size, we popped out the holes using the caps of a soda bottle or something similar. Mini donuts!
Then of course, we fried them using the wok.........hahahaha so Chinese!...
It worked though, It heated quickly, but you have to carefully control the heat. Plus, the sloped sides give you more inches of depth, but use less oil.
engmcmuffin at 9:12AM on 07/10/09
I'm sorry, I was distracted by the donut....(Insert Homer Simpson donut noises here)
ArchieLeach at 9:22AM on 07/10/09
I've been making some pretty good doughnuts in my deep fryer. I use the recipe from The Professional Pastry Chef by Bo Frieberg. I find that I like them a lot better without holes. They seem lighter/fluffier/with a crisper outside.
BrooklynBaker at 9:24AM on 07/10/09
i just bumped my head on my computer screen trying to eat that.
i'm not even a huge fan of donuts, but dammmmmn!
my favorite kind tho-cruellers.....lordy lordy
gastronomeg at 9:35AM on 07/10/09
I love making campfire doughnuts. I take my cast iron camp stove (we call 'em dutch ovens, but they have legs), heat the sucker up with oil, and cook the doughnuts for breakfast or an evening snack.
Because we're camping all we do is bring a few cylinders of pillsbury biscuits, stick our thumb through the middle, stretch 'em out a bit, and then fry them up. After they come out they get tossed in powdered sugar or whatever else and devoured. ;)
FANTASTIC Campsite deserts.
Synapse49 at 10:35AM on 07/10/09
clean oil at the right temperature. and a creamy filling with booze, which will help disguise any errors.
i'm liking the cream cheese method though; yeast doughs are such a pain in my ass.
thursdaynightsmackdown at 11:42AM on 07/10/09
I've only made doughnuts twice, but both times they turned out FANTASTIC! I used Alton Brown's recipe (a yeast dough) from a Good Eats he did on doughnuts. They were the best doughnuts I've ever had and were met with rave reviews.
It took me the better part of an entire morning to make them, but it really was worth the effort. (Lots of waiting for the dough to rise.) At the time I only had a tiny fry daddy deep fryer, so I could only cook one at a time, so that part took longer than it should've.
I don't really have any tips other than use chopsticks to flip them in the fryer. Oh, and eat them the same day they're made, as you can taste them getting 'stale' as the day wears on (we pretty much only ate doughnuts that day lol). Still delicious, but not as good as fresh from the fryer and still slightly warm! YUMMM!
violetcassis at 12:46PM on 07/10/09
I've made yeast doughnuts in the past with moderate success. Right now, I'm looking for a chocolate cake doughnut recipe with a chocolate glaze. The chocolate glaze recipe was easy to find but there are only plain or spiced cake doughnut recipes out there. Anyone know where to find a recipe for chocolate cake doughnut?
zemer at 1:28PM on 07/10/09
Haha, wow. I was wondering why I had all the traffic from Serious Eats.
Thanks for that :D
flouronhernose at 5:01PM on 07/10/09
You can also try using a pate au choux dough instead and fry that.
MikeSims at 7:19PM on 07/10/09
The nuns' recipe my grandma got from the convent. Seriously - we make it every Xmas, and they're awesome.
piccola at 10:44PM on 07/10/09
Brioche dough is THE BEST to use for yeast doughnuts. Since I have a bread maker, I let it mix up the dough for me. You can cut them up into squares and make them like beignets, or you can go the "round" route and cut them into the doughnut shape. Let them rise and fry! Yum-may!
amiyrah18 at 12:51AM on 07/12/09