Donut Anyone?

The weekend is upon us.  What could be better to celebrate it than a hot, delicious, homemade donut?!!!!  We have a simple recipe for these tasty confections, that no one can resist 🙂  Actually, we used the dough recipe for our Homemade Cinnamon Rolls.  We simply rolled out the dough to about a 1/2 thickness, cut circles with a round cookie cutter, and using a finger, poked a hole in the center of each circle of dough.  Then we slightly stretched the hole to make it larger and put the uncooked donuts on a greased cookie sheet to rise for about 40 minutes.

Once they had risen they were fried in some sunflower seed oil that was about 350 degrees.  If you don’t happen to have a frying thermometer or a candy thermometer, simple take a pinch off a piece of sandwich bread and put it in the heated oil.  If it fries up golden brown in about 3-4 minutes the temperature is right for cooking the donuts.

If it browns too quickly the oil is too hot so remove the pan of oil from the heat and reduce the flame when you return it to the burner to cook your donuts.  Try another piece of bread to make sure the temp is correct.  If the oil is too hot the donuts will get too browned before the center has a chance to finish cooking and your will have underdone doughy donuts.

If the piece of bread takes too long to brown, your oil isn’t hot enough.  If the oil isn’t hot enough the donut will absorb too much oil before it is browned and cooked through.   Increase the flame and try the bread again to get the temp right.

These are actually really easy to make.  The dough can be made the night before and refrigerated until ready to use.  Also you can cut the dough into quarters and just use one quarter at a time.  The dough will keep in the refrigerator in a zip locked bag for 4-5 days.  Each quarter of dough will make 1 dozen average sized donuts.

After you’ve fried them, using a slotted spoon, remove each donut and drain them on some paper towels or a paper grocery bag.  While they are still warm roll them in cinnamon sugar, or dip them in the same icing you would use to ice cinnamon rolls.  The icing recipe is with the cinnamon roll recipe.  You can add sprinkles while the icing is still wet if you like.  You could also roll your warm donut in some powdered sugar if you prefer.

Now make yourself a great cup of coffee, or grab a glass of cold milk, and let the weekend begin!