Sunday, January 2, 2011

Time to make the doughnuts~

So, someone mentioned that doughnuts on New Years day brings good luck. I'm not overly superstitious, but if doughnuts bring luck, who am I to argue? And I'm not Googling it to see if it's true or not. Because ... just because.

I whipped up some doughnuts. This is not like me. I love to cook and bake and all, but deep fry? Not my thang. Didn't even have the 2 quarts of oil it called for (and don't cars take quarts!?! That's a lot of oil and it squicks me out. I went to Allrecipes.com and used this recipe. I didn't have 2 eggs so I substituted flax seed and water (1 TBLS. ground flax seed + 3 TBLS water = 1 egg). I also didn't have buttermilk, so I added white vinegar to mine to make it sour. I didn't measure, just added a glug, but I think it's usually 1 TBLS to one cup of milk, stir, let it curdle. I also didn't have a full 4 cups of flour, but didn't halve the recipe like I probably should have, so I used just over 1 cup of bread flour and it worked out just fine. One more thing~I used blueberry applesauce that the girls don't like to eat in applesauce-form. It's great in baking though.

I heated the one quart of oil that I did have to 375 F. It's really important to have your oil hot when frying so it actually cooks the food rather than seeping into it. Ick. I'm also a stickler about having clean oil. I just can't reuse it, and can always tell when someone is reusing it. mmmm fishy doughnuts....gah!

Anyway, oil to temp, dough rolled out and cut
Doughnut/biscuit cutter
(I have a doughnut cutter?!? I use it as a biscuit cutter and take the center cutter part out.
doughtnut cutter center
I've only used the little center part to cut fun shaped things for bento lunches! haha!) and in it went. I have no pictures of this part because I was cooking, not blogging. But then I thought "I could take one pic and blog, right?" So, here's the pic of the doughnut holes cooking.
doughnut holes

How cute are they? That one, that's darker and deformed, looked like Pac Man and went around trying to eat the other dots in the pot.

The recipe made 33 doughnuts and holes, plus 3 little balls. 33 is the perfect odd number for the chef to taste the product while the rest are cooking. :) Here is what they looked like when done.

Mmmm doughnuts Doughnut holes

They hardly had to drain off excess oil as they didn't soak any in. I added just a bit of cinnamon sugar just after the fry. They were crispy on the outside and warm and soft on the inside. mmmm doughnuts (channelling Homer)

As I mentioned yesterday, I'm a date geek, and the 1/1/11 made me really happy. So to round it off I ate 11 doughnuts. Or maybe not quite. Possibly though. And at 11:11 am, I raised a cuppa tea to all my friends and family, thanking you for your love and sending some back. Here's to good luck!

10 comments:

  1. I'm highly jealous of your doughnuts! We had the traditional cornbread/black-eyed peas/greens/ham meal .. but no doughnuts.

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  2. I had no idea you could make your own substitute eggs!! Would you believe that I have flax seeds in my house?

    Wow! GREAT lesson!

    I frequently write "how-to" posts. I usually take pictures along the way and blog later, just as you did.

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  3. Love the donuts! Being the great great granddaughter, great granddaughter, granddaughter, and daughter of professional bakers, I have a high appreciation for the art of donut making.

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  4. Those look super yummy, I swear I can smell them through my monitor! I love the blueberry applesauce idea, and may try that when we make ours. I am waiting to get a donut pan, my girlfriend told me about them.

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  5. OH MY GOSH!!! You can sub water and flax seed for eggs?! Does this work in any baked good? Also, any ideas on how to grind it? I have whole flax, but not ground.

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  6. Let's try this again.

    This post brought back many happy memories and some tears too. My grandmother used to make donuts for us kids and she would powdered sugar in a brown paper lunchbag. She'd put the donuts in the bag and we'd take turns shaking it to get the powdered sugar on the donuts.

    Her biscuit/donut cutter is just like yours and I have it - it is one of my treasured possessions.

    So, thank you for the warm memories today.

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  7. Habitsofamouse, I don't see a direct way to comment back to you, so I'm just going to put this here. ;) I found this site http://www.egglesscooking.com/2008/10/15/egg-replacement-event-flaxseed-meal/ that has a good discussion of flax seed as a replacement, and within that site there are other things listed that you can use as replacements, such as tofu, fruit purees and even vinegar and baking soda. It does mention the flax to water ratio I mentioned, but I also found the ratio of 1TBLS ground flax to 1/4 cup water, which may make baked goods less dense. I'll have to try it.

    As far as grinding it, I put it in a coffee grinder. I have one specifically for coffee and one for spices. Cumin coffee isn't that great. ;P

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  8. Oh, or if you have a mortar and pestle to grind the seeds, that would work too.

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  9. Thanks for sharing the recipe I have never made doughnuts before but wow that does seem like alot of oil for frying but maybe I will have to try the recipe sometime. I added it to my recipe box on all recipes.

    I will have to take a deeper look at the egg less website when I have more time thanks again for sharing.

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  10. I LOVE homemade doughnuts! I make sourdough doughnuts all the time. YUM!!!

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