Once a year right before Christmas my family has a tradition of making homemade donuts and delivering them to friends and family. Last year I decided that I would make them on my own for my Wisconsin family. Let's just say it was good practice and that this year went a lot smoother and tastier. (: This year was also much easier because I didn't have to take "nurse the baby" breaks. Instead Peter practically took a four hour nap and Todd'n'I knocked out the entire process in a snap! Todd would say otherwise haha... but we had lots of fun and really it's all worth it when you see the looks on people's faces when you bring them a plate full of warm donuts. Yummmmm.
Pretty much the prep for this delicious, calorie filled day included buying plates, candy, tags, XL food bags (probably the hardest part of the entire process), and extra flour'n'such in case what is in the food storage isn't enough. (:
And because I love you all and my mother gave me permission to share the recipe... I am going to do just that. Last year a few people asked for the recipe and I told them no way because I thought it was a secret and all. Turns out it's not a secret at all and my mom thought it was pretty funny and ridiculous that I have been keeping the yumminess to myself this whole time. So to you peeps who I turned away, I'm sorry! Here's the the recipe, tips, and tricks to making delicious homemade donuts.
Step one: Prepare your potatoes.
That's right, potatoes. These aren't your sissy "melt in your mouth" Krispy Kreme donuts. These are spudnuts. You will need 1 cup mashed per batch... so do the math, throw in a few extra tatoes and boil the heck out of 'em! Really though, boil them forever and ever, you want them to be nice and easy to mash. Speaking of mashing, you will want to do that next. Once your potatoes are boiled to death, drain out the water and mash away. You can either mash them by hand, take a beater to themr... whatever get's them as smooth as possible. Once they're mashed go ahead and put them in the fridge. I like to prepare the potatoes the night before so that I can wake up and get started with the dough right away. Last year I waited until the day of to do the potatoes and it added a couple hours onto the entire process. Bad idea.
Step two: Make your dough.
Donut day has arrived! Pull your potatoes out of the fridge first thing in the morning so they can start warming up to room temperature. Not necessary but they're easier to work with when they're not cold. Once you're ready to get going you will need the following ingredients:
1 c. mashed potatoes (I should add that these have to be Idaho potatoes people!)
3 1/2 TBLS yeast (dissolved into 1/2 c. warm water)
2 eggs
1/2 c. sugar
1/4 c. shortening
1 TBLS salt
2 c. warm water
7 c. flour
Cream the sugar, shortening, salt, and potatoes. Add the eggs and yeast mixture until nice and combined. Now switch to your bread dough arm thing if you're using a kitchenaid and alternate between the 2 c. warm water and 7 c. flour until you have a manageable and slightly sticky dough. If you are using a kitchenaid then you may want to know that a double batch barely fits in the biggest bowl, I think KitchenAid's biggest is a 6qt? Anywho, if your KitchenAid doesn't have the arm thing that lifts the bowl to the mixer and instead you have the kind with the bending head... you will definitely only want to do one batch of donuts at a time. So. Dough is done. Spray the inside of another clean mixing bowl with cooking spray and place your dough in the bowl. Cover with either plastic wrap or potato cloth and let the dough rise for an hour somewhere besides in the fridge or out on your deck. Aka in a warm-ish place like on your stove... or if it's super cold like our apartment usually is, you can crank the heat in one room (we have floor heaters) and put a heating pad on top of the bowl to help things along.
While the dough is rising, you'll want to clear all surfaces of your kitchen so you can have room to roll out the dough, cut the dough, fry the dough, dip the dough, plate the dough, eat the dough, etc. (:
Step three: Roll out and cut your dough.
And the hour is up! Fill your electric skillet with oil about half way and heat to 350-400 degrees F. While the oil is heating up spray or flour (spraying makes for an easier clean up) a nice big clean surface and roll out your dough until it's about 1/2-3/4 inch thick. Next, cut out your donuts. Growing up my mom used the mouth of a largish cup to cut out the donut and a small lid of some sort for the donut hole. Last year I got her an actual donut cutter and it broke within minutes. This year she bought a sturdy one and the donut hole part of the cutter wasn't long enough so it didn't cut. Boo! Since my cutter from last year broke as well I resort to using a round cookie cutter for the donut and a milk gallon lid for the holes (I've since preferred a vinegar container lid). My point is... use whatever the heck you want! You can make them huge donuts, small donuts, whatever tickles your fancy! or your tongue. Our donuts were about 5 inches in diameter and one batch made roughly 35 donuts. Anyway, back to actually cutting the donuts... you'll want to cut them out, set the holes aside, and pull away all of the unused dough and put it back in the bowl so the cut donuts can rise a little longer. A little longer being like 20-30 minutes? Maybe? Just whenever they are noticeably bigger.
Now you get to fry the donuts! Test out the oil with a few donut holes first to make sure it's a good temperature. You don't want them to fry too fast because obviously they'll burn. If they fry too slow they will soak up too much oil. Fry your donuts... as many as you want at a time as long as they're not sitting on top of each other. Last year I just used a frying pan and was able to only do 5-6 at a time. This year I borrowed an electric skillet from the lovely Hannah and got 9+ at a time... awesome! My mom has two skillets that she heats up and is able to do like 25 at a time which is wonderful if you're on the ball and don't let them burn. (:
Step five: Dip those suckers!
Once fried, lay them on paper-towel lined cookies sheets/trays to cool off a little before sending them to the dipping station.
Once they are cool enough to handle they can be dipped in the following glaze:
1 lb. pkg powdered sugar
1/2 c. warm water
1/2 tsp vanilla
My mom likes to thin out the glaze with more water so it goes farther but I prefer it nice and thick and ooooh so delicious.
Dip your donuts and hang them on the neck of a wooden spoon across the glaze bowl until they stop dripping. Place the wet dipped donuts on another paper-towel covered cookie sheet/tray/pan and let them dry. Hint: do the dipping underneath a fan, the glaze will dry faster resulting in a quicker process altogether.
As for the donut holes, we like to roll those in sugar. (:
Step six: Bathe in the deliciousness.
Well you're pretty much done! Now all you have to do is resist the urge to eat them all and put them on plates with cute little napkins and extra candy! Bag 'em up, tag 'em up, and send them out to anyone you want to be in better standing with. ;) That is, if you were planning on sharing them in the first place. If not, you are free to eat them all in one sitting, cut them up for a divine bread pudding, or literally dump the lot into your bathtub and dive in for a weird yet delicious experience.
Enjoy!
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