Sunday, September 11, 2011

Go "Dough"nuts!

As most of my followers know... (and thanks to the handy little intro to the left) I am a police wife. This being said, I've heard my share of doughnut jokes. I was originally planning to make the department some chocolate cupcakes this weekend, but when I stumbled across a homemade doughnut recipe on All Recipes.com, I figured it was about time I caved to the stereotype. And so tonight, I am sending Mr. LMC off to work with a tray full of homemade, insert-joke-here goodness.

As I began this rather early this morning, and because nothing goes better with a fresh doughnut, step one today includes the making of coffee:


The ingredients are simple enough:


The first step is to get the yeast working for the greater good. Sprinkle it over the warm water and watch the magic happen!



Next, we throw in the rest of the ingredients, saving 3 cups of the flour for gradual adding lately. Use the dough hook attachment on your mixer to save your arm a lot of work!


Once the initial ingredients are well-combined, add the remaining flour in 1/2 cups until everything is mixed and the dough starts to pull away from the bowl. 


Once the dough is done mixing, knead it in the bowl for another 5 minutes or so, or until the dough is elastic and smooth.


Put the dough into a greased bowl, cover it with a tea towel and let it rise in a warm place until it's doubled in size. You'll know it's ready when you poke it and the indentation remains!

Next, turn the dough out onto a floured surface and roll it until it's about 1/2 inch thick.


Using a floured doughnut cutter, cut out as many doughnuts as you can. You can save the middles and remaining dough to make some doughnut holes later! :)


Leave the cut out dough pieces in a warm place, covered lightly with a tea towel until they've doubled again.

Once the dough is ready, it's time to fry them up! Using either a deep fryer or heavy saucepan, heat up your oil to about 350 degrees. As the LMC household doesn't own a deep fryer and Mrs. LMC isn't crazy about deep frying in general, I opted to use my wok, all the while keeping a very close eye on it!

Please, please, please be careful when frying without a deep fryer. Keep your eye on the oil at all times!!


A good trick to test your oil is to use some of the excess dough as a test to make sure it's ready to fry!

Very carefully slide a few doughnuts at a time into the hot oil. Once they rise to the top, flip them over and fry until the underside is browned and cooked through.


Remove the cooked doughnuts to a wire rack and let them cool. The best system is to put a wire rack over a cookie sheet lined with parchment paper.


Don't they look good? :)

Next it's time to ice these yummy creations up! I used my previous tip on melting creamy frosting in the microwave until it was dippable. Then, of course, I added sprinkles. The print link will take you to the original recipe which gives a great, sweet glaze that you can make if frosting is not your thing :)


Let the frosting set and voila! I highly suggest bringing a batch of these to your local police department :)


Enjoy!!

Crystal