Battery Doughnuts

[Sakkarin Profile]

A friend of mine recently managed to track down an ancient doughnut iron on eBay, as he wanted to recreate his grandmother's doughnuts, and as you can see, he's made a fairly good first bash.

They are different from normal doughnuts in that they are made with a batter - you fill the ring with batter, dunk it hot oil, and when it is cooked it floats out of the iron to the surface of the oil. End result, beautifully consistent round doughnuts.

The problem is that he can't find a recipe, and is doing it from a combination of memory and intuition. I've looked through my ancient cookbooks and can find nothing, have any of you out there got any old cookbooks with a recipe for this kind of batter doughnut, or an old handwritten recipe in your vaults that you can share?

I've baked and fried virtually everything else under the sun, but I canfess that I've never made doughnuts before. I think that may be my next project, top of the list are a custard doughnut (in memorium to the huge custard doughnuts that I used to treat myself to for breakfast occasionally, (I think from Tesco but I wouldn't put money on it) and KK's bacon and maple doughnut burger...

[Renée Profile]

Oooh, those do look good, Sakkarin and I love biting into the crunchy sugar coating. I only had one attempt many years ago and that was to make a fat sausage shape and join the two ends together! Yes, I know, that's not the way to make them!

[Renée Profile]

These doughnuts are poured into a doughnut maker.

http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/39172/si ... onuts.aspx

[jeral Profile]

Interesting about the doughnut iron. That exact doughnut ladle is still sold on Amazon US for a fiver-ish but is a stainless steel version. In my surfing, I learned that SS didn't get as hot as iron so an iron one seems a good find

Apparently they (doughnuts) became very popular in the 1930's (cheap food in depression era) so you'd be looking for a recipe around that time.

A couple here:
http://www.homemade-dessert-recipes.com ... ecipe.html

http://pzrservices.typepad.com/vintager ... s-recipes/
(scroll to just above half way down or do a Ctrl-F to find "Retro Recipe for Homemade Doughnuts"

Another old one used a ton of lard in the dough that your friend probably really wouldn't want to eat, lol. In truth no worse than bread and dripping was a staple here when times woz 'ard. Buttermilk seems to figure a lot.

One site said to grease the ladle (so doughnut releases itself to float) then flip over once at the top. I get the greasing bit but can't figure the need to flip.

I didn't come across any that were a runny batter for ladles, but use of the word batter might mean they probably weren't yeast-risen doughs (guessing here).

All fascinating as they can be so different, solid bready or open crumb but really oil etc. Like small seaside ones that were more oil and sugar dip than doughnut

I love doughnuts, but not modern ones with so much bicarb they burn my mouth.

The easiest custard (or apple) ones to make at home are split sausage rather than injected rolls as the former cooks more evenly

[jeral Profile]

These doughnuts are poured into a doughnut maker.

http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/39172/si ... onuts.aspx

The Net is wonderful isn't it? I came across a few similar 30s era gadgets whereby you turned the handle on top and it plopped another doughnut dollop into the hot oil, like a home version of an industrial extrusion plopper.

Do you know, the worst thing about replying on this subject is avoiding typing donut. <-- Done it now so got that off my chest

[Sakkarin Profile]

Hmm. I've always had do(ugh)nuts down as a yeasty confection, but all those recipes are baking powdery.

The second recipe is strangely worded, no flour quantity, it just says "flour enough to roll soft". Those second two recipes require shaping, so presumably aren't batter version. Nice oldy worldy pic...

[Stokey Sue Profile]

My first thought was that a battery powered doughnut would terrify the cat

My second was that the doughnuts you see in fairgrounds are a kind of batter extruded from a nozzle into swirling hot oil, so I googled "extruded doughnut" and got a lot of incomplete recipes for Krispy Kreme Klones, which wasn't very helpful

During this I learned that there is a distinction between "cake doughnuts" raised with baking powder, and "raised doughnuts" (sic) made with yeast, as Krispy Kreme are

cake doughnuts
http://allrecipes.com/recipe/33625/cake-doughnuts/

Raised doughnuts
http://www.food.com/recipe/incredible-easy-raised-donuts-203062

But I didn't find a recipe for a pourable or extrudable batter with either raising agent

[Stokey Sue Profile]

This is an interesting soft batter mix, cake type

https://www.kitchencraft.co.uk/customer/recipes/sweet_recipes/2216

[Sakkarin Profile]

Not sure that "risen" one is for eating - maybe it's an organic Christmas decoration...

[DEB Profile]

I have not made these for sometime but they do start a stiff batter and might do the job. They eat well hot but go over quite quickly.
http://www.lakeland.co.uk/r80135/Doughnut-recipe

[jeral Profile]

Since the mention of custard doughnuts, I've been trying to remember what the custard in bought ones tastes like to me, not custard that's for sure. Lightbulb moment: It's like cheap egg nog (watery with a weird chemical undertaste).

Only worth mentioning because if anyone does make the injected doughnut buns, it's made me think that proper Advocaat would be my first choice, if I'm not allowed my beloved Bird's custard powder that is. Or Baileys

[karadekoolaid Profile]

About 4 months ago I went to a craft beer festival.
Someone was offering some delicious hamburgers - in a doughnut bun.
But they were really delish - the combination of sweet and savoury ticked all the boxes!

[Pampy Profile]

An alternative doughnut...http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/s ... _hp_ref=uk

[Sakkarin Profile]

That reminds me of the "courgetti nests" I saw in Sainos the other day!



£87.50 a kilo, sheesh...

http://www.sainsburys.co.uk/webapp/wcs/ ... rgetti-20g

[Sakkarin Profile]

Yay, my first ever doughnuts! I used the yeast doughnut recipe from my trusty Dairy Book of Home Cookery, it looked better than the Marguerite Patten recipe as a starting point.

The recipe was for 8, but they would have been walnut-sized, so I made 6, but even so they were fairly small. I made some creme pat, but the "spherical" doughnut, even making just 6, was far too small to fill, so I just ate them with the custard instead.

The recipe was for fried doughnuts, but I put a couple in the oven too, to see how they'd turn out. Both the holy and spherical options ended up looking virtually identical (back of pic). The sugar would not stick to them at all, and as there is very little sugar in the dough, they really were bread rolls, not doughnuts. And with a hardish crust. FAIL there!

It is astonishing how much better the fried ones were, although they could still be softer, fluffier and a bit sweeter.

[strictlysalsaclare Profile]

I can't help with the batter method of making doughnuts, but I've just been watching a repeat of Paul Hollywood's City Bakes on Food Network. He was in LA and visited a bakery that specialises in vegan doughnuts. Blimey, some of the varieties on the menu were completely bonkers, including a schiracha chilli sauce one.

[jeral Profile]

I saw that episode too. PH didn't "get" savoury doughnuts did he, liking only the chocolate one and his own concoction was a sweet one. It is a US thing though, sweet buns with savoury and often features in diner/burger programmes.

karadekoolaid mentioned sweet buns earlier and the logic seems to be that they conform to the "sweet, sour, salty, bitter" umami combo. So, e.g. a sweet bun and probably a sweet sauce (tom or sweet chilli), salty or brined cured meat plus salt in the "sour" acidic coleslaw, and a "bitter" gourd/gherkin or raw chilli, like diced jalapeno.

Sakkarin's fried doughnuts look very enticing As a coating, icing sugar is good as it absorbs excess oil so you can scrape it off, lol, although a lemon icing covering takes some beating...

On the baked ones, I used to buy a branded packet mix that was labelled to be for either bread or doughnuts, so must be yeasted, whereby usage was identical except whether baked or fried, but definitely no suggestion that you could bake it and it'd be a doughnut. It was very good for either bread or fried doughnuts actually, so dunno why it disappeared, except more profit to supermarkets in selling finished items maybe?

[Sakkarin Profile]

Just coincidentally spotted this pic on Facebook, they look like the huge custard doughnuts I remember and loved, but the trays look as if they may have been baked, however the sugar dusting means that they have been tampered with after they were cooked. So are they baked and these are the trays they were baked iin, or fried and the trays are storage only?

I think maybe the light line round them suggests frying.

[jeral Profile]

...[clip]...
I think maybe the light line round them suggests frying.

Yes; also, if baked so close together they'd have joined up methinks.

Mmmm lovely doughnuts. Do you think they'd notice if an odd tray or two went missing?

[Sakkarin Profile]

Sheesh, there are 336 doughnuts there. To fry them all so consistently, they would presumably have to have a machine, and I wonder if that machine would have a "batter dispenser"?!?