American
Old-Fashioned Donuts by Christina Tosi
- Prep time 20 minutes
- Cook time 20 minutes
- Serves 4 donuts
Author Notes
"If you ask me, donuts are just about the best creation—fluffy and sweet, and an acceptable way to basically have cake for breakfast. There’s a donut for every mood: classic glazed for when you are feeling minimal; sprinkle-covered for when life needs some excitement; frosting-filled (my teenage self’s Dunkin’ Donuts go-to for race day); apple-cinnamon flavored for those crisp fall days. Donuts make the world go round. Do You Bake Club: Add pumpkin spice to the sugar in your brown paper bag for pumpkin-spice
donuts. Heck, make a lemon-glaze donut, a strawberry-glaze donut—you get it, keep going!" - Christina Tosi
From Bake Club by Christina Tosi and Shannon Salzano © 2024 by CS Tosi, LLC. Excerpted by permission of Alfred A. Knopf, a division of Penguin Random House LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher. —Food52
Ingredients
-
4 cups
vegetable oil, for frying
-
1/3 cup
granulated sugar
-
2 tablespoons
vegetable oil
-
1
egg
-
1/4 cup
milk
-
2 tablespoons
heavy cream
-
2 teaspoons
apple cider vinegar
-
1 teaspoon
vanilla extract
-
1 1/4 cups
flour plus more for dusting
-
3/4 teaspoon
baking powder
-
1/2 teaspoon
kosher salt
-
1/2 teaspoon
cinnamon
-
1/8 teaspoon
baking soda
-
confectioners' sugar and/or cinnamon sugar and a paper bag, for dusting/coating
Directions
- In a heavy-bottomed medium-sized pot, bring 4 cups of the oil to 325 degrees F over medium heat. This will take about 10 minutes.
- In the meantime, in a medium bowl, which together the sugar, remaining 2 tablespoons of oil, and the egg until combined, about 30 seconds. Whisk in the milk, heavy cream, vinegar, and vanilla until everything is combined.
- Measure the flour, baking powder, salt, cinnamon, and baking soda into the mixing bowl. Toss together only the dry ingredients on top with the whisk first, before truly stirring them into the wet ingredients below–you can ditch the whisk for a sturdy spatula. Mix until everything is just combined, but still sticky.
- Plop the dough out onto a lightly floured work surface. Flour your hands and bring the dough together, patting the surface and sides with the palms of your hands to press the dough into roughly a 4-inch square, about 3/4 inch thick.
- Using cutters or larger- and smaller-sized cups, cut out donut rounds with 3 1/2-inch diameters and a 3/4-inch diameter center. You should have four donut holes. (If you have extra dough left after cutting out, stick it all together, press it out, and repeat the process until you have used up all of the dough.)
- Gently drop one donut hole into the hot oil to do a temperature check. It should sizzle immediately, float, and become golden brown within 1 to 2 minutes. If it sinks, or doesn't sizzle at all, the oil is not hot enough, so wait a few more minutes or turn up the heat a bit. If the donut hole fries too quickly and browns immediately (leaving the batter raw inside), pour some room-temperature oil into the pot to cool the overall temperature down, and turn down the heat. Fry another donut hole until you reach the sizzle/float/golden-brown sweet-spot target, in 1 to 2 minutes. (Remove all these donut holes from the oil, obvi.) Then fry a full donut round, gently placing the donut into the oil facing away from you, so as not to splash up on you. It should sink, then float within 10 “Mississippi”s, and sizzle and become golden brown within 3 minutes. Flip it, and fry the other side until it’s golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes.
- Gently remove the donut from the oil, transfer it to a paper- towel-lined baking tray, sprinkle both sides immediately with confectioners’ sugar, or toss it in a brown paper bag with cinnamon sugar, and eat. Don’t you dare try to save a donut for later. Eat it! Now!
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