The Circle of Life (is Definitely a Doughnut).

I haven't attempted fried chicken again, although I do have a recipe for sweet tea fried chicken in the pipeline.  One reason for my hesitation: the frying itself.  We have an electric range, and although it makes cleaning easier and is great for quickly heating food, it can be difficult to keep at a constant temperature.  And keeping oil at a constant temperature is especially important for fried foods.  So I was about to skip making these doughnuts because I was intimidated by the prospect of oily doughnuts, burned oil, grease fires, etc.  Then I thought, "If I never try frying again, how will I ever learn to do it well?"  I'm glad I tried again.  Although I think the "Copycat Krispy Kreme" label on this recipe might be a misnomer-- I'm pretty sure if you undercooked them they'd be more similar, but fully browned, these are definitely more cake-y and taste more... homemade somehow-- they are definitely a make-again.  Next time I might experiment with adding pumpkin.*

Pumpkin everything is here!

While these came out well, here are a few things I would do differently next time:
1) Let the dough proof longer during the second rise.  To know if doughnuts have proofed enough, there should ideally be a lighter ring around the center of the doughnuts after frying on both sides where the dough sat above the oil.
2) Use evaporated milk instead of water for the glaze and make it closer to the time I put the doughnuts in the oil.  Water was fine, but to get it to the right consistency, you have to add more than the recipe calls for, which in turn waters down the taste.  I later dipped half of the doughnuts in butter and then into sugar and cinnamon, because the glaze recipe didn't make much at all and hardened quickly.
3) Slightly undercook, mostly to see the difference in texture.

First, I scalded and cooled the milk.  To scald milk, rinse a saucepan with cold water (this will help the milk not burn) and dry thoroughly.  Then heat the milk until steam forms and small bubbles appear around the edges.  Take off the heat and stir until the milk stops steaming.

I let the yeast dissolve in the water in a mixing bowl, then added the eggs, shortening, sugar, salt, and milk, then stirred in two cups of flour.  I used a dough hook, but you can use a wooden spoon or regular beater. 

I added the rest of the flour until a soft dough formed.

Then I put the dough in a lightly greased bowl, covered, and let it rise for an hour until doubled in size. I use the bread proof setting on my oven, but you can let it rise in any warm, draft-free area.  When the dough is ready, it will hold a thumbprint without bouncing back.

I gently punched down the dough, rolled it around on a floured surface, then rolled it out using a rolling pin until it was roughly half an inch thick.  I couldn't find any regular doughnut cutters, so I used a larger and a smaller cookie cutter, cutting out the large rounds first and then cutting out the centers.  I gathered the centers and scraps and rolled them out together to cut out more doughnuts, but you can always make doughnut holes with them.

I put the formed doughtnuts on baking trays rubbed with a little vegetable oil (I would recommend flouring the trays too; the doughnuts stuck some).  I covered them with a light towel, though the picture shows them uncovered, and let them rise another 40 minutes until roughly doubled in size again.  I think another 20 minutes (so an hour total) would have been better.

I put the oil on the stove to heat while the doughnuts were finishing their rise, enough to reach about 2 1/2" up the sides of the pot**, turning the dial one notch above medium heat (to 6 on my stove top). As it was heating, I made the glaze.  I should have waited until the oil was about ready, because the glaze hardened quickly. I melted the butter, added the sugar, added the vanilla off the heat, and then added water one tablespoon at a time until the glaze reached the desired consistency (think syrup-like).  The glaze looks browner than it does when it is on the doughnuts because of the vanilla.  

Then it was doughnut making time!  Once the oil reached 350°F, I took a spatula and carefully slid doughnuts into the oil, frying them in small batches.  They puff up quickly.  Overcrowding the pan can cause the temperature of the oil to go down and leave you with greasy food or food that is cooked on the outside but raw on the inside (this is why frying chicken is so hard!).  Many times, it's necessary to turn the heat slightly up after any food is added to the oil to prevent a drop in temperature. There was never a noticeable fluctuation frying the doughnuts 4-5 at a time, so I didn't change the heat setting.

To flip, I used the handles of two wooden spoons, placing one gently in the hole of a doughnut and using the other to flip it from the side.  They should be golden brown (45-60 seconds on each side).  I transferred them to a stack of paper towels, turning them over once to remove any excess oil.*** At this point, I was working quickly to get the doughnuts fried and dipped into the glaze on each side because the glaze was hardening so fast, so I couldn't get decent pictures.  I transferred the dipped doughnuts to wire racks over paper towels to cool.

Some doughnuts still didn't get glazed, so I melted some butter and dipped them lightly on each side into that and then into a mixture of 3/4 cup sugar and 3/4 tsp cinnamon.  

I think I actually preferred the cinnamon and sugar ones, but because I didn't do that until the next day, I only took pictures of the glazed.  Not that the glazed doughnuts were bad.  They're almost all gone now...

****

DEEMS THIS RECIPE:
Somewhat surprisingly, easier than pie.

* I am that person who likes pumpkin everything in the fall.

**Yes, this took almost 40 ounces of canola oil. Try not to consider it a waste, because you can reuse oil for frying.  Let it cool, then funnel it back into the bottle using a paper towel or cheesecloth to catch any burned food bits.  

*** If done properly, there shouldn't be much excess oil.  Food absorbs far less oil during frying than you might think.

****I should have a better camera in time for the next post!

Midweek Recipe Roundup: The Cake is a Lie.

Confession: I have two cake recipes that I love that use boxed mixes.  For these, I've tried many from-scratch recipes, and I haven't found any that get as fluffy or light.  I've tried cake flour, all-purpose flour, beating less, making sure all ingredients are at room temp, baking at a lower temperature, baking at a higher temperature, but I keep coming back to these recipes.

Coconut Poke Cake
Other than adding a 1/2 teaspoon coconut extract and 3 whole eggs, I followed the instructions on the box for the cake.  In a previous recipe roundup, I linked to a recipe for boiled white icing.  That goes perfectly with this cake, especially when topped with toasted coconut.

Caramel Cake
This recipe is from Anne Byrn's "The Cake Mix Doctor" cookbook.  I use it most frequently, as you can tell by the state of the cookbook:

The frosting can get difficult to work with; I sometimes keep it over the lowest heat on the stovetop while frosting the cake, taking it off only occasionally.  It also greatly helps to sift the powdered sugar beforehand.  Even though it might seem a pain, it's easy to have pure sugar lumps in the frosting otherwise that make it hard to smooth it out over the cake (although I've made it like that many times before, and people still like it!).












DEEMS THESE RECIPES:
Still easier than pie.

The Keys to Good Gnocchi.

The first time I tried a gnocchi (potato dumpling) recipe, most dumplings fell apart in the boiling water, and I was left with a gooey, starchy mess.  The ones that didn't fall apart were very heavy and chewy. Basically, I ended up with an odd combination of mashed potatoes and what tasted like underdone pasta.  Then I found a recipe in the September/October 2011 edition of Cook's Illustrated, and I finally succeeded at making gnocchi.  I used it in combination with this recipe to create a meal.  I think I managed to simplify the Martha Stewart recipe a bit by adding fresh spinach to the sausage mixture at the end instead of bothering with all the broccoli-rabe-ice-bath steps and not completely caramelizing the onions.

Thanks, Martha, for this turkey centerpiece idea,

but I think I'll just buy a houseplant for fall home decor.

What I did wrong the first time making gnocchi:
1) Added too much flour. Most of the time, too little flour means not enough gluten to stimulate during kneading, but because I didn't have a good binding agent, too much meant that I was basically working with way too much starch, and the dough didn't stick together while kneading.
2) Didn't use a binding agent.  Some recipes avoid egg, but in this one the egg makes the dough easier to handle, come together easier, and not fall apart without making the gnocchi heavy.
3) Over-kneaded.  Because I had difficulty getting the dough to stay together, I over-handled it, and the dough that formed made chewy, dense dumplings.

I was going to go through the steps of the dumplings themselves, but I got so caught up in cooking that I completely forgot to take pictures until the gnocchi was already finished!  Luckily, I found where someone else had already gone through the recipe step-by-step: Tracey's Culinary Adventures: How-To: Homemade Gnocchi.  **I did change the ingredient proportions because I used 1.5 pound bag of Steam n' Mash potatoes and then put those through a ricer.  If you do that, you can still use one egg (trying to use 3/4 of an egg is just too complicated!), but reduce the flour by 1/4 cup and 1/4 tablespoon and the salt by 1/4 teaspoon.**

Here is a how-to for shaping gnocchi, although if you don't want to shape it, you certainly don't have to.  The ridges are supposed to help hold sauces.

So for the rest of the recipe...

I heated the oil over medium-low heat, adding the onions and stirring occasionally for about 5 minutes, until the onions were a light golden color.  You can continue until the onions are a deep golden-brown and completely caramelized, but because they start to taste sweeter at this stage, I go on and add the sugar and red wine vinegar.  The vinegar will cause steam (you can sort of see it in the fourth picture) and hissing, so try not to stand over the pan when you add it; it can make your eyes sting!

Once the vinegar has evaporated (the strong smell will have dissipated, about 1 minute), add the sausage, breaking it up and cooking until browned.  Then add the spinach.  Don't be afraid to add an entire box; fresh spinach will wilt way down.  Once the spinach had wilted, I spread the mixture in the bottom of a casserole dish.

For the browned butter, I melted 6 tablespoons of unsalted butter over medium heat and cooked until it was lightly browned and fragrant, about 3 minutes.  This can be started just before the water for the gnocchi starts to boil; that way you can drop the cooked gnocchi by the slotted spoonful into the browned butter.  Remember not to let the gnocchi float for more than about 45 seconds.  They'll get tough.

I then transferred the gnocchi from the butter to the sausage mixture, drizzling the rest of the butter on top.

I put some in a bowl, grated some Parmesan cheese on top, and then I ate it.  And it was good.

DEEMS THIS RECIPE:
Still much easier than pie.*






*There will be actual pie soon.  

This weekend...