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
Really enjoy the Damsel and her website…because of her, my husband is now requesting pumpkin seeds. In bulk.
With that as inspiration, I loaded up my pickup with all the abandoned pumpkins from a pumpkin seller’s stand after they closed up shop, took away the sign, the tent and the port-a-potty and left the poor little things all orphaned out in the dark and the cold. Felt like I was doing a very virtuous thing giving them a new home.
Lovin’ the donuts. I’ve always thought donuts would be a big giant project and I suppose it is when you make a 100 or so…think I might have to scale the recipe down a bit for it to be do able at my house but thank you for posting this. I’m just all excited at even thinking of doing it. Anyone who has never tasted a brand new fresh donut, still hot from the frying and not from warming lights or a microwave oven needs to try this, too.
Wonder if the Damsel, with her superior mathematical skills, could scale it down for us that don’t need 100 at a time?
What do you say, fair Damsel? Oh, and if you are not too busy with ciphering, I wonder if you have ever made jerky?
p.s. Any recipe ideas for what I am going to do with all of this pumpkin that I adopted and have roasted, scraped from it’s peel and is now patiently waiting in my refrigerator? I’d like to can it but seems like I remember hearing or reading that you aren’t supposed to.
Thank you again, Ms. Whittaker. I’m looking forward to having leftovers, too.
Hey, thanks for the nice words! I’m so happy you saved all those pumpkins from being orphaned.
As for the doughnuts, what size batch would be best for you? A half batch? I’ll be seeing Annie tomorrow and can see if there are any special things to know about cutting the recipe down. Let me know what size you’d like.
Jerky is definitely coming up in the future! Yum!
And…as for pumpkin, yes, it is considered to be too dense to home-can. The fear is that it won’t get sufficiently hot all the way through because of its denseness. How about freezing it? All you do is put the cooked pumpkin (puree or cubes) into freezer bags and ta-da, you’re done.
Freezing it will be then.
Half a batch? eek! That’s still a lot of donuts when you consider it is only my husband and I. I was thinking more along the lines of a dozen, if that’s do-able.
Thanks again, Damsel. I meant what I said, I’ve learned a lot from you and your site and it’s always a fun read, too.
oooo, I really really want to make these now. WIth your step by step instructions, they even look, possible!!
PS: Loved the warning against using too small a container for the yeast. A picture is worth 1000 words!!
I’d really love to be able to try this but pretty sure I’d blow up the house. Something about all that hot oil scares me.
PS: They really do look delicious though.
Is the milk really required? I would love to be able to make doughnuts for my dairy-sensitive daughter. Can these be done with soy or rice milk, or even almond milk?
I’ve been wanting to make doughnuts for a while now. Thanks for the encouragement!
Love, Terrie
Terrie…a really nice man has been emailing me donut tips, and I asked him about your milk question. Here’s his reply:
Goodness, I have two grandsons with milk allergies. The donuts I made were from a mix. I had no choice as I was a franchisee. However I did find a recipe without milk. Here is the link.
http://www.cooks.com/rec/view/0,194,140178-237207,00.html
It is my understanding that milk adds to the softness of bread products as well as some flavor. It also tends to inhibit spoilage. An interesting thing to me is the inclusion of potatoes or potato water. My mix I used had potato flour. The spudnuts recipe you presented uses potatoes. There used to be a chain of donut shops called Spudnuts. Potatoes or potato flour make a really soft donut.
I suggest that your contact try a small batch and see how they work out. I have read that you can substitute soy or rice milk but the flavor will not be the same.
I need to do some research for frying methods and then I will tell you about making apple fritters from the scrap dough after you have made donuts.
Leonard
Sorry I missed the damsel the other day! I was feeling under the weather. I don’t know the measurements, but I know that my cousin who is away at college was so sad to miss the donuts, her mom and dad made them with her when they visited last week. I think they just tried to reduce the batch as much as possible, they only made about a dozen.
Gail–I know what you mean by being scared of all that hot oil. I just watched a Mythbusters thing about a little water getting in a pan of hot oil (well, it was so hot it was actually ON FIRE) and then the water made it into a huge ball of fire! Yikes! Huge…as in 30 feet tall! Holy cow!