Betty Crocker Old Fashioned Doughnut Recipe

When I was a child nosotros mostly ate commercially produced donuts from a place called "Mister Donut".

Merely I do remember my mother making real raised yeast donuts a handful of times. I think I got the impression that, considering she made them and then seldom, they were really difficult to do. But afterwards making them this calendar week using the recipe from the 1950 Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook I suspect information technology was less a matter of difficulty and more that she simply didn't have the time. They are non besides hard but they exercise require plenty of ascension time.

To make Betty Crocker'due south yeast donuts you lot will need to use a couple different recipes and to follow directions on a few different pages.

First caput to the master recipe for "Raised Doughnuts". In the 1950 edition this is establish on page 109.

Read the recipe advisedly - it specifies that you volition use half the recipe for "Sweetness dough" which is institute on page 98.

And when you lot go to the sweet dough recipe you need to read carefully once more because it uses compressed cake yeast instead of the dry packaged yeast that is most readily available in today'south grocery stores. (In fact, where I live, the only source of block yeast is the cyberspace.)

At that place is a footling annotation under the recipe that specifies how to substitute dry out yeast and it's very important that you read this BEFORE you measure the corporeality of milk. The amount changes depending on which yeast you are using.

Notation: Betty Crocker calls this "sweet dough" - the Peachy British Baking Show calls these types of doughs "enriched" dough.

Once you start actually making the recipe, the outset thing to do is to rut upwards the milk.

I followed the instructions and heated to "lukewarm" but this was a mistake because every bit soon every bit you add the shortening and yeast and other stuff the temperature drops so much that the shortening remains one behemothic glob. So I started over with hot milk and only added the shortening to it at commencement. I stirred it around until it broke up and THEN added the yeast and other ingredients. By this time the temp was back down to lukewarm.

It looks like this before y'all start adding flour:

Next you start calculation flour - I only added one/ii a cup at a fourth dimension and then I could really control the amount. I've learned that, with all yeasted doughs, the amount of flour tin vary greatly depending on weather weather and other variables. Because of this I never actually follow a bread recipe exactly when it comes to the amount of flour. Instead I read what type of dough I'm supposed to be ending up with - "viscid" "stiff" "dry out" etc.. I add flour until the dough looks like whatever it says in the recipe.

I wound up using merely about one/2 cup less flour than specified - if I had added it all the dough would take been really, really dense and almost impossible to knead.

For this type of dough that starts out with a lot of liquid, yous offset mix with a spoon or spatula and and then transition to using your hands once the dough is too stiff for a spoon.

Once yous have added all the flour you volition turn the dough out onto your counter (or wherever y'all similar to knead dough) and knead until information technology is nice and elastic.

Note: I did not utilise a mixer with a dough claw considering this is an "old school" recipe. I have establish, when making this dough for a different recipe, that using a mixer GREATLY increased the amount of flour I had to add to get a dough that was non viscous. If you feel you MUST utilise a dough hook, mix the dough by paw to this point and then transfer to a mixer.

Subsequently the dough is kneaded, stick information technology in a nice big greased bowl and cover it. I try not to employ plastic wrap for this - reusable silicone basin covers work just every bit well. Let the dough rise until it is doubled.

If you lot are not used to making dough and need tips on how to know when the dough has doubled in majority, or other procedures, in that location are Betty Crocker tutorials on page 90, 92 and 93.

When the dough is doubled you will punch it down and allow information technology rise again until virtually doubled again and it will wait similar this:

Carefully ringlet it out on a lightly floured surface and fix to cut out the doughnuts. The recipe says whorl to 1/three inch simply I wish I had rolled to 1/2 inch - I call up the doughnuts would accept been taller and lighter.

I do non take an official donut cutter so I used two biscuit cutters. It worked fine.

I had some dough left over and, considering this dough is non like pastry or cookie dough and it'southward not easy to smoosh it dorsum together and recut, I fabricated twists out of the extra dough. This paradigm is earlier rising - I forgot to take one after they rose :-) Betty says to permit them rising on a floured lath merely I used silpat type liners on cookie sheets and that worked very well.

The recipe made x round donuts, 10 donut holes, and 7 twists.

Once they are washed with the last ascent yous are gear up to fry them at 375 degrees in hot oil. Endeavour to utilise the most neutral tasting oil you tin find. Canola was not available in 1950 but it's actually the best choice these days.

The Betty Crocker Picture Cookbook says to fry in a deep fryer or dutch oven. I like to apply a wok for a couple of reasons: i) The wok has a wider diameter at a shallow indicate which uses less oil and I can fit more donuts in at the aforementioned time. two) Almost woks come with a draining rack then I can permit the donuts bleed right back into the oil while still hands putting in new donuts.

If y'all do not have a place to bleed the donuts dorsum into the fryer you will want to follow the recipe and use paper towels.

The Betty Crocker recipe mentions how to sugar the donuts (put them in a bag of sugar while they are still warm and shake the bag) merely does not mention glazing the donuts.

Glazing is like shooting fish in a barrel - just mix some powdered sugar and water in a bowl to make a sparse coat, drop the donut into it, swirl it in the coat a little, flip it over and do the other side, then put on a cooling rack to let excess glaze drip off.

Hither are my donuts! Some glazed and some sugared.

Overall Impression Of This Recipe: These donuts were fantastic and tasted almost exactly like the ones we become at the bakery!

The recipe was really not too hard - especially if y'all are used to making sweet dough for other recipes like cinnamon rolls. Now that I know that doughnuts are basically simply a fried version sweet dough, and non some super special "donut dough", I might try using another dough recipes I like and see how they come up out. I'll share results as I explore!

As Always: If you own a re-create of the Betty Crocker Pic cookbook (1950 edition) I hope I've inspired you lot to have another good look at it. If you don't accept a copy they are pretty easy to find on ebay and other sources for old used books.

If you lot are just finding the weblog for the first time you might want to explore the other manufactures on Betty Crocker'due south 1950 Picture Cookbook. You tin can discover them by clicking the "Back To Betty" category in the right hand side bar.

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