How to make homemade donuts

How to make homemade donuts .

I am sure that there is no one in Spain, at least of my generation, who does not know what a donut is .

Surely almost everyone, on more or less occasions, let us enjoy one of these fried dough donuts with that sugar glaze . Personally, they bring back childhood memories, so the idea of ​​making them at home trying to look as much like the original as possible seems fun and great.

It is not the first time that I prepare them, nor the first recipe that I try, but this one that I have prepared today is, of course, the one that most resembles the usual donut . You will even find on the blog how to make chocolate donuts , how to use them in a really yummy donut cake or with these cream filled donuts . I am not going to tell you that it is exactly the same because it is not, but it is very close to the commercial that we remember as children. Definitely  the touch of orange and cardamom is the secret of success .

Today  donuts are the classic breakfast in the United States , and in our dessert recipes you could not miss, these are the classics. Although in Spain we have imported many varieties with colored icings and filled with jam, cream, chocolate … endless options, of which I will give a good account in the blog.

The mass is more similar to that of the stuffed saloons   so famous in Spain .  I keep ours, the ones of a lifetime with their sugar glaze and here is the recipe for you to enjoy.

Preparation of the donut dough

1. In a saucepan, heat the milk with a strip of orange peel until it boils. Thus we infuse milk with the aroma of orange. We remove from the fire and let it warm. We reserve.
2. We open the cardamom pods and extract the seeds. We crush the seeds in a mortar.
3. In a bowl mix the flour, salt, sugar, zest of the orange peel and ground cardamom seeds. Mix well and reserve.
4. When the milk is warm, strain it and add the butter. Let it melt, add the baker’s yeast and stir well to integrate. It is important that the milk is warm, not too hot so as not to load the yeast.
5. In a large bowl beat the egg and add the milk with butter and yeast. Mix well.
6. We put the flour mixture into the bowl of liquid ingredients and begin to knead. First with the help of a wooden spoon and then with your hands on a lightly floured surface.

Kneading and resting the donut dough

1. Knead for 10 minutes and put the dough back in the bowl.
2. Cover with a cloth and let it ferment for 2 hours until it has doubled in volume.
3. To make sure of the result what I do is let the light dough inside the oven turn off but previously heated to 25-30º C.
4. The ambient temperature does not always help for the work of fermenting dough. So in this way there is no failure.
5. We roll out the dough with a rolling pin on the previously floured worktop. We leave it a thickness of just under 1 cm.
6. With two round molds, one for the outer contour and the other to make the hole for our donuts. We are cutting the portions.
7. If we do not have a specific mold for cutting pasta, we can use a wide glass for the outer circle and a plastic lid for milk carton, for example, to make the inner hole.
8. Another important thing to keep in mind when making portions is that we must make the most of the dough the first time we roll it out. Since when putting together the cuttings and kneading again the result will no longer be the same.
9. We will be left with less aesthetic donuts, more deformed. So it is important to try to make as many servings the first time.
10. We are placing each portion of the donut on a piece of sulfurized paper to facilitate the work of its handling. It is a fairly delicate dough and is easily deformed.

Frying the donuts

1. Once all the portions are done, it is time for a second levado.
2. We put the donuts back on a tray, inside the oven turned off but warm. For 1 hour until they double or triple in size.
3. We heat plenty of oil in a small but deep frying pan. When the oil is hot, not too much, we are placing our portions.
4. We fry our donuts at medium temperature for 1-2 minutes on each side. We remove to a tray with absorbent paper to remove excess oil.
5. Transfer the donuts to a rack until they cool completely. We have to be very careful with the temperature of the oil, because it is very very easy for donuts to burn in a spot and a no spot.

Glaze and final presentation of the donuts

1. Prepare the icing by whisking the icing sugar with the water. When the donuts are cold we dip them in the glaze on both sides. We return to the grid to drain the excess and dry.
2. I assure you that they are impressive, everyone should try to make them homemade at least once in their lives, friends will come from everywhere.
3. Remember that you have to lead a healthy life, a varied and balanced diet, in which all kinds of food have a place, even those forbidden small pleasures in the form of a thread that satisfy the body and mind.

Do not think twice, go ahead, take a donut and enjoy it consciously. Be happy!

Here you have a step by step in photos where I show how to prepare this recipe for donuts . Do not miss any detail so that it comes out perfect.

Tips for perfect donuts

• In step 10 I explain that you place the donut on a piece of parchment paper or baking paper to facilitate the work of handling it. It is a fairly delicate dough and is easily deformed. So we can throw them directly into the boiling oil without removing the paper, which separates instantly and is easily removed with tweezers or a fork.
• If you have leftover dough, and you think you can’t handle them, neither your family nor your neighbors … I advise you to freeze. You can keep them wrapped in plastic wrap or zip bags, protecting them well from the cold so that they do not burn your dough, and when you want to eat them take them out and let them thaw the night before (always in the fridge). Then the next day you leave them at room temperature, wait for them to ferment until they more or less triple their size as I explain in the step by step and follow the recipe.
• If you like donuts, you have to fry them. There are several recipes for donuts or baked donuts, they are not anywhere near good. They stay dry like a donut. The fluffiness goes to hell.
• A common mistake is frying in very hot, excessively hot oil. The dough is browned excessively and is raw inside. My advice is to fry at 7 out of 10 points that my induction has, that is to say at 70% of the temperature of your kitchen.
• If you don’t make a hole, you can fill them with jam, chocolate cream or custard.

Curiosities about donuts. Origin and history

• If you wonder about its history, I tell you that its most probable origin is in an oil bun that was prepared in Holland around the 16th century, the olykoek .
• Initially it was a bun-shaped cake with no hole. Due to culinary technical problems at that time it was very difficult to get the dough to be evenly fried, leaving the central area raw on almost all occasions.
• As a way to solve the problem, walnuts were placed in this central part so that having less dough to fry, it remained as raw as possible.
• The origin of the word is due precisely to this custom, the first Dutch emigrants arrived in the United States began to call this bun dought nut , walnut dough, deriving the word up to the current donut .
• It was not until 1847 when Hanson Gregory came up with the idea of ​​making a hole in the center of the bun to solve the problem of poor cooking (which still existed despite everything).
• Whether it was because he didn’t like walnuts or because he wanted to try something new, this was the moment the current donut appears as we know it today.