Fireworks, friends, freedom, and FOOD! That is what July 4th is all about right? :-)
I am incredibly blessed to be an American citizen. We celebrate the signing of the Declaration of Independence by making BBQ, being with family and friends, and remembering the brave men and women who fought for our freedom so many years ago. Thankfully, there are still men and women today who sacrifice to keep us free.
This year WDD and I celebrated A LOT! Our church, Westwood Baptist, hosted a fireworks show. We got to see some incredible fireworks and hang out with some dear friends of ours. Oh, yeah, and eat! Then we went to Logan Martin Lake and spent some time with our family swimming, grilling, and enjoying each other.
Let's get back to the eating part......for our gathering at church, we decided to make homemade donuts! Who doesn't like donuts??
First, lets get all of the essentials: butter (LOADS of butter!), milk, eggs, flour, yeast, sugar, powdered sugar, and of course, vanilla!
Pardon my sippy cup.....I can be found with a cup of water/kool aid/sweet tea/etc at all times. It is slightly a necessity.
Yep, you see that correctly, *NSync playing in the background. Who doesn't listen to boy bands while baking?
Okay, okay. Back to the task at hand....
This strange looking goodness is the yeast mixing with milk becoming active. The bubblier and stranger it looks, the better.
Bow chica wow wow!
Everybody needs a smokin' hot kitchen assistant.
Mine is beating the eggs for me before we mix them in. Here is a little tip that I have learned: if a recipe calls for eggs, always always always beat them a little before pouring into the mixture. I don't have a technical reason why, it seems to mix smoother and a smidge faster.
So, obviously, I missed a few steps.
Mix all of the dry ingredients.
Add in the wet ingredients.
Mix until the dough clings to your dough hooks and comes easily off the sides of your mixing bowl.
Generously flour your counter.
Roll the dough out to about 1/2 inch thickness. I made mine about 1/4 thick and wish I would have left it a little thicker in the end.
If the dough is sticking to the rolling pin, or glass cup if you are like me and don't have a rolling pin, keep sprinkling flour on the dough to keep it from sticking.
I also do not own donut cutters or biscuit cutters so I use a glass cup and a Champaign flute.
Maybe one day I will break down and purchase these items. Probably not though, I keep things old school around here! :-)
Use your bigger glass to cut out all of the donut outsides.
Pick up the excess unused dough.
Use the smaller glass to cut out the middle of the donut to make the donut hole.
We floured three cookie sheets to put the uncooked donuts on after being cut out.
After all of the donuts are cut out and on a cookie sheet, cover with a kitchen towel, let sit for an hour or more to rise.
Grab an iron skillet or a semi deep pan from the cabinet.
Fill the pan about half way with oil. The original recipe calls for canola, but I used vegetable because it was what I have.
Turn the heat on medium to medium high. You want to keep your oil hot enough to cook the dough within 30 seconds but not have the oil soak into the dough. This is a tricky temperature, for me at least. I tend to get my oil too hot then have I have to remove the pan from the eye to cool a bit.
Flip the donut after about 15 seconds. Cook the other side for about 15 seconds.
Pull out of the oil and put it on paper towel to dab off the excess oil.
Place on a cooling rack.
There is no way you will be able to glaze these jokers right away.
Lets make some glaze!
In a medium bowl mix together the powdered sugar, vanilla, and butter.
It will become a beautiful and tasty glaze right before your eyes!
Go ahead, taste it! Your life will be changed forever.
After the donuts have cooled enough to handle, place a donut into the glaze. Remove from glaze and place back onto the cooling rack. If the donut is still pretty warm, the glaze will not stick very well.
Once the glaze dries, you can dunk again for a second coat. I highly recommend this step.
You will fill up that cooling rack pretty quickly, so keep those cookie sheets handy to help the glaze dry.
You might notice there are less donut holes in the container than in the original picture. You might wonder where those donut holes went.
You can continue to wonder, because I'm not telling!
This is the Pioneer Woman's donut recipe and can found here http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2010/02/homemade-glazed-doughnuts/
The glaze was modified from the Pioneer Woman's. It found it here:http://www.blessthismessplease.com/2012/07/pioneer-womans-glazed-donuts.html
Enjoy! I know WDD and I did!
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