donuts

there is nothing like a fresh donut...i love the taste, the texture, the sweetness...everything. this was my first attempt to prepare them.

what i used for the dough:

1 cup scalded milk

1/4 cup unsalted butter

1/4 cup sugar

1/2 teaspoon salt

7 g dry active yeast

2 beaten eggs

1/6 teaspoon nutmeg

3 1/2 cups flour

1/2 cup mashed potatoes

the picture for this recipe have been taken on two different days...i prepared the dough late in the evening, left if in the fridge during the night and made the donuts in the morning of next day...that's why they seem so different. 

as a first step, i melted the butter in a hot milk then added one teaspoon of sugar and the salt and left it to cool down. meanwhile i whisked together the eggs and the remaining sugar. after about 5 minutes i added the nutmeg.

i mixed the milk that was not so hot anymore with the yeast and left it to grow while i was preparing the rest of the dough. to the egg mixture (whisked eggs with sugar and nutmeg) i added 1 cup of flour and mixed it well. next ingredient to go in were the mashed potatoes, which i mixed in thoroughly as well. then i poured in the milk with yeast and the rest of the flour. the final dough was light and a little sticky (it was sticky on my fingers, but not on the bowl). i placed it to the fridge covered by a plastic foil and left it there overnight. you don't have to wait the whole night though, the dough doubles its size in more less an hour and you can proceed with the recipe.

in the morning, when i took it out of the fridge, the dough was beautifully and full of air bubbles. i rolled it out and cut out the donuts. i used two different size glasses instead of a donut cutter because i do not have one. i left the donuts to rise for about 30 minutes. to use the waiting time well, i prepared my "glaze" mixing together 2 cups of powdered sugar, half teaspoon of vanilla, 1 tablespoon of warm milk and 1 teaspoon of butter. if you do not like vanilla glaze, you can prepare a chocolate one, or any other flavor you like.

when the donuts doubled in size, i heated the vegetable oil and fried them until they got beautiful golden brown color (not more than 2 minutes on each side). i left them to cool down on a paper towel to get rid of the extra oil. at the end i glazed them with the sugar vanilla mixture. they were a real success but there is always room for improvement :)