Donuts!! Glorious DONUTS!!

I absolutely LOVE donuts. Who can resist donuts?!! And WHY would you deprive yourself of such a yummy thing? Its like biting into a soft cloud of light sweetness. With or without frosting, I could gobble them with my eyes shut even if you wake me up at 3 am. I cant rush to Mad Over Donuts whenever I feel like it. I’d shamelessly eat into my retirement savings if I were to give in to every craving like that. So whats the next best thing ? HOME MADE DONUTS, of course!

As with every dish I decide to try, I read and read and read recipies until I found the PERFECT one for me. EGGLESS. I saw a couple of recipies for Baked Donuts too..but hey, Deep fried is what I dig. Ya dig? (Sorry! Blame the sugar rush…)

Please excuse the picture quality. Either that, or gift me a nicer phone with a better camera. I cannot waste the calories I blissfully gained from these donuts on fetching the digicam, taking pics, then uploading them. Naah. I'm sorry about the weird shapes too..I just couldnt waste any of that awesome doughnut mixture! But the recipie, I promise you, is perfect. Guess what the secret ingredient is? POTATO!! YES, one mashed boiled potato gives these donuts the smooth texture you’ll love. If you haven’t worked with yeast before it could be a pain in the business end to proof the yeast..fancy way of saying that the yeast wont do what its supposed to do if you don’t treat it right. It may take a few attempts to get it right, so browse a few nice pictures of donuts to get yourself motivated to keep going..

Heres what you’ll need :-

1 1/3 cups warm milk,
1 packet active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
2 tablespoons butter
2/3 cup sugar
1 boiled potato, mashed smooth without lumps
5 cups all-purpose flour or maida
A pinch or two of nutmeg (jaiphal), freshly grated
1 teaspoon salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 cups sugar, powdered works better
1 tablespoon cinnamon powder

Method:-

Place 1/3 cup of the warm milk in a bowl. Stir in the yeast and set aside for five minutes or so. Be sure your milk isn't too hot or it will kill the yeast. Keep this bowl aside in a warm place. I placed it in an oven that was off but still warm from being used a few minutes previously.

Once the yeast-milk mixture becomes frothy, stir it alongwith the butter and sugar into the remaining cup of warm milk. With a fork, stir in flour, mashed potato, nutmeg, and salt. Knead the mixture. You want the dough to pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl and eventually become supple and smooth. Add milk or flour as required to get this non sticky, soft consistency. Turn it out onto a floured counter-top, knead a few times and shape into a ball.

Transfer the dough to a buttered or oiled bowl, cover it with a cloth and put in a warm place. Let it rise for an hour or until the dough has roughly doubled in size.

Punch down the dough and roll it out 1/2-inch thick on your floured countertop. I used a drinking glass to stamp out circles. Stamp out the smaller inner circles using a smaller cutter. I used the handle of a spoon used in my mixer ginder. Don’t throw away the precious bits! They can be fried just like the rest of the donuts.Cover the donuts with a clean cloth and let rise for another 45 minutes.

If you are the calorie counting type, you could bake these at 170 C for around 10 minutes and get out of my face..I tried and preferred the deep fried ones instantly. Make sure that the oil isn’t too hot. You could test it by dropping a little ball of dough into the oil. It should come up to the surface fairly quickly.

Drain excess oil and while the donuts are fairly hot, dust on powdered sugar mixed with cinnamon powder or plain powdered sugar.

I couldn’t wait to eat them as soon as I could bite into them, so the cream cheese frosting never happened. If you search for frosting recipies, you’ll find many. I just loved them as they were. 

Makes 1 1/2 dozen lovely donuts.