A quick google brought me some recipes and I read their reviews to see which one I wanted to try. I wanted something uncomplicated, with clear directions. I looked up info on frying, since I don't have a deep fryer I wanted to be sure I could do this safely.
Side note: since doing this Phil has suggested that we get a little deep fryer so I can make these without all the temperature fussing. Which sounds like a good solid theory. But...way back when I lived with a very good friend and she owned a little deep fryer and I became flat out addicted to making fries. Cutting up potatoes with the skins on, frying them until they are crispy as all get out and liberally dosing them with salt, using three-cheese ranch salad dressing for dip....omg so good.
Yeah. I do not need that kind of temptation again. One of the good things about doing it stove top is that it is kind of a pain in the ass, once in a while thing to do. If I have an easy-peasy deep fryer to work with then that could get dangerous to my waistline damn quick.
Anyway...I consulted with a friend who owns a cafe and makes incredibly good baked goods, and while she hasn't done much with this sort of baked good, she did warn me against making sure my temp didn't dip too low. If the temp is too low then the donuts would absorb too much of the oil and taste funny. Make sure I had a good thermometer.
Armed with that advice I tried my hand at making these beaver-tail style donuts
. The recipe was really easy to follow, and getting to punch down the dough after it rose was a lot of fun
Then you pull off bits of dough and roll them out flat. Usually beaver-tails are quite big, I wanted something smaller and more manageable.
Tip: very carefully lay them into the oil. Dropping causes splashing which causes burns on your fingertips
I thought I had a good thermometer but it turned out that while the one I had was awesome, it didn't go as high as I thought. I did my best to keep an eye on the temp by guessing where it was above the highest temps, but I was concerned about not letting the temp go to high (not wanting to have a kitchen fire. Again). As a result, I think I low-balled it and as a result there was a little bit of weirdness to the taste.
They were still really good. Most of them I coated in cinnamon sugar
They were very well recieved, the whole family enjoyed them.
The last bit I made up a bit of garlic butter to smear over them and topped that with shredded cheese
Those ones were awesome and I'm glad I only made a few of them since it would be super easy to over-indulge in those.
I'm looking forward to trying them again, next time I'll be able to monitor temp better since I bought a new thermometer that clips onto the side of the pot and goes up as high as I need it to.
For my next attempt I used this cake donut recipe. The dough has to be refridgerated for an hour before being fried up, so I mixed it before I went to dance class with the intention of frying it up just before watching the latest episode of True Blood with some knitters. I'm still not entirely what happened, but I suspect that I didn't have enough oil so the temp rose too quickly. The dough I dropped in immediately burned and the oil began to smoke, so the pot was immediately covered and removed from heat (then put outside because it stank).
I gave it another go, being very careful to use enough oil and monitor temp
This dough is rolled out and cut into circles. I used a little biscuit cutter since I was really just making donut holes (do they count as "holes" if you never made the donut part?)
The dough went from flat disks to puffy in the oil. They were then transferred to a pie plate with coffee filters on it to get the excess oil off. Popped them into a baggie with cinnamon sugar to coat them and ta da!
They were so good! The kids loved them! I loved them!
I plan on doing them again, but this time I'll make full sized donuts. The problem with these little bite-sized bits of goodness is that you can eat way more of them then you intended to.
My next kitchen adventures will be scones and then croissants. If you never hear about that again, you can assume it went horribly wrong.
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