I asked the Damsel if she would like to know how we make homemade doughnuts on Halloween. It’s been a tradition in our family since Grandma Lola started making them and giving them out over 40 years ago. Sounded like a blog post, and so here it is.
Grandma Whittaker’s Spudnuts
1 qt. Milk scalded and cooled
Dissolve 7 TBSP yeast in 1 cup warm water w/1 TBSP Sugar
In big bowl cream: 8 TBSP shortening & 1 cup sugar
Add: 4 beaten eggs, 2 cups mashed potatoes (can use instant), 3 tsp salt, cooled milk, yeast mixture, and approx. 14 cups flour a few cups at a time, stirring after each addition.
Let rise, then punch down and roll out about ½ inch thick.
Cut out and let raise again on cookie sheets.
Fry in hot oil, and dip in glaze made of 2lbs. Powdered sugar, 1 cup hot water, 1 tsp vanilla. Makes approx 100 spudnuts.
Now, the first thing I would warn against is using too small a container for dissolving the yeast (see picture).
Don’t be afraid to add more flour to the dough. I added a little bit more to all but one batch. You want the dough to feel like bread dough. If it’s too wet, add more flour.
As you can see, we use the same pan to fry the doughnuts in hot oil that we’ve used for years. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!
Wooden dowels make the perfect drip-dry hangers for the doughnuts. Once you get good at it, you can use a wooden dowel to scoop the doughnuts out of the hot oil, and to dig them out of their powdered sugar glaze bath.
We ended up doing 4 batches for Halloween based on last year. The only trouble–we bought new “cookie cutters” to cut the doughnuts out, and it turned out the new cookie cutter was smaller than the old one. Thus: more doughnuts.
We didn’t mind taking care of the leftovers.
Annie Whittaker
