MM loves donuts.

Not going to lie – so do I!

But with the restricted movement we’re all under currently, it may not be the best idea to head out to a favorite donut shop. So sometimes you have to gather your courage for the scary adventure of deep frying…

I did my best following Lauren Weisenthal’s recipe over at, you guessed it, Serious Eats, so I’m not going to copy the recipe here. It’s pretty self explanatory. I also failed, again, to take pictures. If I do this recipe again, I’ll start adding some in for good measure.

Let’s just say that I’ll have to practice a lot more to be comfortable making yeast raised donuts again. It’s not that the method is terribly difficult – it’s not. It is a little time consuming, with the creation of the dough through warming milk, activating yeast, mixing and kneading, then proving overnight. It would have also been a little more helpful if I actually had donut cutters, but since this was the first time making donuts, and I was unsure of how many more times I’d do it, I didn’t want to spend the money, or wait for them to arrive.

And so I was left with a round biscuit cutter, and the large opening of a piping nozzle. It worked well in a pinch.

They didn’t seem to rise as much as I had hoped they would, so I was immediately concerned that I had overworked them.

It’s a little scary to bring a Dutch oven half full of oil up to the right temperature, and it’s very tricky to keep it there while monitoring the look of donuts the first time you make them. As a result, I think I ended up simultaneously cooking them for too long and getting them too oily.

All in all, they were… okay. I can definitely do better, and maybe I will. Made sure to strain the oil so that I could get it into a container to use again, but to be honest, I haven’t gathered the courage to try again.

Any one else try something like this? Any suggestions?