Time to make the doughnuts
If you remember that tagline you were born before 1990. You know you’re getting old when you start reminiscing about old commercial jingles and taglines. I miss you Dunkin’ Donuts guy, this one is for you…
Doughnuts may seem intimidating when you see them lining the walls of fast food restaurants covered in sprinkles and frosting, but at their core, they are nothing more than fried dough and sugar, and well…there ain’t nothin’ better than that.
I started this culinary adventure with a basic pizza dough recipe, using whole wheat flour. I read an article in the New York Times about doughnuts back in 2005 and it hit a soft spot for me. Doughnuts get a bad wrap. The column damned these loverly little pastries because they happen to be the only food with no nutritional value. None. Doughnuts are basically the most useless of all foods, but damn they’re tasty.
Hence the whole wheat flour. I’m on your side lil guys! I want you to pack a nutritional punch, even if it’s wee and amounts to no more that a bitch slap to your colon.
Basic Whole Wheat Pizza Dough
Ingredients:
- 1 package of yeast
- 1 cup warm, but not hot, water
- 1 Tbsp sugar, honey, agave nectar, or your caloric (meaning not artificial) sweetener of choice
- 2.5 cups whole wheat flour
Combine yeast, sweetener, and water. Set aside and let yeast activate, approx. 5-10 minutes. Add flour and knead. Place dough in an oiled bowl, cover with a kitchen towel and set aside for 45 minute to allow to raise. Once the flour has risen, knead into submission. This is a great way to work out your triceps and a great stress reliever. (You can use this for actual pizza too, just think!)
Instead of swirling around your head pizza chef style, flour your counter and your dough and roll out cookie style.
Enter biscuit cutters!
You can get a set of multi sized circle cutters at any kitchen store. I used a 2.5″ round, and a 1″ round for the hole.
Once you’ve successfully shown your dough who’s boss, it’s time for frying. You can use any type of oil you want for this with a high heat threshold. I fried these suckers in a mix of safflower and olive oil.
Olive oil doesn’t have a high threshold, so I only used a bit, for the flavor. After all, these are grown up doughnuts.
If I were on The Food Network, this is where I would whip out my magical candy thermometer to make sure my oil was just the right temperature, but I don’t fry things that often, so I’ve never invested in a thermometer. Plus, I’m pretty sure that people have been frying delectible goodies long before the advent of Williams-Sonoma.
If you are like me, thermometerless, to test your oil just throw a bit of dough in. If it sinks to the bottom, it’s too cold. It should settle somewhere in the middle and pop up to the top in a few seconds to a minute. That’s the right temperature.
Once the bottom side of the doughnuts starts getting all goldeny delicious, flip them over so as to not make the top side jealous.
Let your delicious morsels cool, and let some of that excess oil drain off. No need to prove that NY Times article right.
Now comes the fun stuff. When they’re coolish, but not completely cold, toss them in a mixture of cinnamon and sugar. If you’re really ambitious you can whip up a ganache. (I’m not that ambitious.)
There you have it: Easy homemade doughnuts. I always feel riddled with guilt when I walk up to the counter of a doughnut shop or bakery knowing what I know about doughnuts being devoid of any health benefit whatsoever. But that guilt somehow subsides when I make them myself. Now they are a feat of kitchen masterdom. The calories don’t count if you’re a culinary rock star!
