Doughnuts

Is there anything to say here really?  This is my favorite doughnut recipe so far, they are so tasty and light.

The original recipe is insanely huge.  I really don't recommend making that much unless you are planning on opening a drive up window, it mkes 4 DOZEN DOUGHNUTS!!  I halved the recipe (of course) and I still ended up sticking a cookie sheet of dough in the freezer because it was still too much for us to eat.  And we weren't dainty about it (not that we ever are).  I think next time I will try cutting the recipe down to 1/3.   I used bread flour this last time instead of all purpose and I think it made them a little easier to work with when it came to frying them.   It's easiest if you have a fryer, but I have done it before in just a pan and some oil and thermometer.  I really don't recommend frying anything without a thermometer to make sure you are around the right temperature.  Just try to get it at the right temp and keep it there, it might take some adjusting.   I have included a recipe for the glazed (our favorite) and cinnamon sugar. 
I do chocolate covered sometimes but I don't feel like it's blog-worthy yet.

Doughnuts
Ingredients:
2 pks. active dry yeast (1 package is 2 1/4 tsp)
1/4 cup warm water
2 cups warm milk
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 cup hot mashed potatoes (just cook potatoes, drain and mash up)
3 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 1/2 tsp salt
9 1/4- 9 3/4 cups flour
oil for frying

For the Glaze:

1/4 cup butter, melted
2 T + 2 tsp milk
2 cups powdered sugar
1 tsp vanilla

Cinnamon/sugar mixture:
1/2 cup sugar
1 tsp cinnamon


Directions:
Since I halved the recipe, I used my bread maker.  Put all wet ingredients in bread maker, add yeast and let sit for 5 minutes until foamy, add flour and turn bread maker on to dough cycle.  The full recipe is too big for a bread maker, unless you have a giant one. (I added the full amount of flour, 4 3/4 + 1/8 cup)

For your mixer, add all wet ingredients to bowl, add yeast and cover with sugar, let sit until foamy, about 5 minutes.  Add 2 1/2 cups flour and mix with paddle for 30 seconds on low and 2 minutes on medium, switch to dough hook and add remaining flour until flour starts to pull away and the sides of the bowl are clean.  It will still be sticking on the bottom a bit.  I usually end up adding all the flour, the full 9 3/4 cups.  Dump into a greased bowl, cover and let raise for 1 hour or until doubled in size.

After bread maker is done, or dough has risen an hour, dump onto lightly floured surface and let sit about 15 minutes.  Roll dough to 1/2 inch thick and cut into doughnuts.  If you have a doughnut cutter, that's the easiest, but I have used just 2 different size round cutters.

I think the holes are the best parts, but if you don't like them you can always gather them up and re-roll.

Place on greased baking sheet about 2 inches apart.  Cover with greased plastic wrap and let raise 45 minutes. 



If you want glazed doughnuts, mix all glaze ingredients until combined and set aside.  If you want cinnamon/sugar doughnuts, mix cinnamon and sugar in a bowl an set aside.

Heat oil to 375-400, fry doughnuts a few at a time, flip and fry on both sides until golden.  I found that getting the doughnut holes off the cookie sheet without mangling them is pretty easy, but the doughnuts themselves are bit trickier.  If you use a spatula, dip it into the oil and then slide it under the doughnut carefully and transfer to the oil, it seems to work the best.  If you come up with another way, I'd love to hear it.

Remove from oil and drain on paper towels for about a minute, either drop doughnuts into glaze and coat completely or drop into cinnamon sugar and coat completely.  I usually do half glazed and half cinnamon sugar.

The dough I stuck in the freezer, held up pretty well.  I put the cookie sheet in the freezer and when the dough was frozen, I transferred it to an airtight container.  A couple days later, I got the dough out, put it on a greased cookie sheet, covered and let them raise about 3-4 hours and then proceeded with the cooking and glazing.  They were a little harder to get into the oil without mis-shaping them, so they weren't quite as pretty, but they were still delicious.

Source:  Adapted from: The Taste of Home Cookbook

Have a great weekend. :)