Going Donuts with the Daring Bakers

The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make donuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious. I don't know about everyone else out there but donuts just plain scared me. So this was truly a challenge for me.

Lori gave us quite a number of choices (yeast or cake) and many variations (fillings and toppings) to choose from. Since this was to be my first attempt I chose to make yeast donuts with a coat of cinnamon and sugar. I know it doesn't sound very courageous, but the thought of deep frying without the help of a deep fryer had me very wary from the start.

The ingredients and directions can be found on some of the Daring Bakers blogs if you want to give it a try. The yeast dough was suprisingly easy to assemble and rose nicely. If you have been reading my blog you would know that yeast used to send me running in the opposite direction. However, over time I have come to terms with it simply by making sure the water is at the correct temperature and that the yeast is fresh.

Since I do not have a deep fryer I substituted a deep saucepan filled with oil to the required 3 inches. I used a thermometer and brought the oil to 365 degrees. The fry time was about 1 minute per side. I slid the cooked donuts out onto a rack and let them cool before rolling them in the cinnamon-sugar mixture.

I must admit this challenge was fun and educational for me. Not only did it give me an opportunity to try something never before attemped but, I was able to take the fear out of deep frying. The donuts themselves were very tender and delicious! My family loved them and polished them off before they were totally cooled! Thanks Lori!!!