I’ve made donuts at home before. You know, open up the Pillsbury tube, punch a hole through the center of each preformed circle of white “dough” , toss it in oil, roll it in cinnamon sugar. Homemade donuts. But yesterday, I wanted HOMEMADE DONUTS.
I don’t know why I make life so much harder for myself. In the crazy shuffle of loading 3 small children into the car before breakfast on a Saturday morning, to run to the grocery store to get almond milk and strawberries for these homemade strawberry glazed donuts, my wise son of 5 years old says, “Mom, we can just go to dunkin donuts.” Yes. Yes we could. But nonetheless, on we pressed on.
I’m not gonna lie, making homemade donuts is pretty messy and takes way more time than my more than patient children (and I) expected. But the end result was delicious, not so picture perfect, donuts for lunch. (Real mom win there.)
Here’s what I did…
the ingredients
add yeast to warm water with some sugar wake it up
heat milk on the stove on medium
add shortening to the milk and heat until melted
milk and shortening combined and bubbling
put sugar and salt in a bowl
then pour hot milk on top, stirring until cooled a bit
add 1 cup sifted flour
add eggs
in 5-10 minutes the yeast has started to foam up considerably
add yeast to the bowl and stir
add 1 more cup of flour and mix
switched to my dough hook and added 2 more cups of flour
prepped my kneading board with flour
stopped mixing when it looked like this
turned out the sticky dough and kneaded in flour until it just was’t sticky anymore…maybe 5 minutes
placed ball of dough in a greased bowl to rise in warm area
dough doubled in size which took about 1 hour
turn out dough onto floured surface and just press into a flat piece, 1/2″ thick.
i used a donut cutter to twist donuts out, but a cup and a piping tip would suffice
I’m starting to get giddy at this point
need to rise for another 40 minutes…p.s. as a helpful tip, let plenty of flour coat the bottom of these babies so they don’t stick and come off easliy
risen but are super fragile! don’t handle to much or they’ll deflate…very sad
fry for 2 minutes per side at 350º. Notice the back one deflated from handling to much
drain on paper or towels to remove excess oil.(not the prettiest donut pic I chose to use…oh well)
make a simple glaze with milk, butter and confectioners sugar, and cook unto glossy and smooth
coat on all sides
let excess glaze drip back into the pan
fluffy interior and crisp exterior
kids got involved with decorating, strawberry glazed is their favorite
Here’s what you’ll need…
Yeast Donuts
1/2 c water, warm
2 pkg active dry yeast
3/4 c almond milk or regular milk would work too
1/3 c sugar
1+ tsp salt
4 – 4.5 c all-purpose flour, sifted and added in stages (may not need it all)
1/3 c shortening
2 eggs
GLAZE
1/4 c almond milk
1/2 tsp vanilla
1-1.5 c sifted confectioners’ sugar
2 Tbspn butter is optional
*optional strawberry glaze…chop up 1/2 cup strawberries and add to glaze and cook down to make a puree…add slowly to a bowl of powdered sugar to make a thicker frosting glaze
sweet kryptonite 