Hi guys, I'm Laura Vitale and on this episode of "Laura in the Kitchen", I want to show
you how to make glazed doughnuts; just like a traditional American doughnut that so many
people have been requesting here for years and I'm thrilled to be able to bring them
to you today. Before we get started, let's go over the ingredients. You will need some
all-purpose flour,and a pinch of salt, some whole milk that has been warmed to about 115
degrees Fahrenheit, you are going to need some eggs, melted shortening-vegetable shortening.
unsalted butter that has been melted, sugar, yeast. Those are the ingredients you will
need to make the actual doughnut and you will just need a few additional ingredients to
make the glaze in just a little bit. So, let's get going. The first thing we are going to
do is activate our yeast which is super important! I'm going to take my warm milk, sprinkle in
a little bit of sugar, because the yeast needs to feed off something, and then I'm going
to sprinkle the yeast right over the top. Now, I'm probably going to get a lot of questions
about whether or not you can skip the yeast, and the answer is, "ABSOLUTELY NOT". Yeast
is a crucial, crucial ingredient in this recipe and a lot of bread recipes, cinnamon rolls,
and things like that. If the recipe calls for yeast, it usually means you can't substitute
it. So, in the mixing bowl that I have here, I'm going to take my eggs, along with my vegetable
shortening and my butter, and the vegetable shortening is a pretty crucial ingredient
as well, for the texture. We're going to take some sugar and I'm just going to whisk this
together with my little hand mixer here just until it comes together and that just takes
about a minute or two. I've got a bowl here that I've just greased with a little vegetable
oil, that's ready. This looks good, I'm just going to wait for the yeast to proof for just
a few more minutes, it will take about 3 to 5 minutes, and I'm going to clean up and then
I'll show you the second step. My egg mixture looks great and my yeast mixture
is perfect, you can see it's gotten all foamy at the top which is exactly what you are looking
for when you're activating yeast. If it doesn't get foamy, and if you don't start to kind
of smell it, which doesn't smell pleasant, even though I do love it, then it's not proofed
and that's not good. So, get it all off my spatula, just going to mix this in, just very
briefly. I'm going to take some of my flour, mix in the salt really quickly, just a little
bit, just to kind of give it a heads up, and then we are going to pop this into the standing
mixer, just give it a quick little heads up and then you can add in the rest. Alright,
now the mixer is going to do all the work. On about medium-low speed, I always want to
say medium-low heat, on medium-low speed, I'm going to let this go for a good about
five minutes or so, you want this to be a nice smooth dough, but you don't want it to
go too long, otherwise, it's going to get tough and you want the doughnut to be real
crispy and lovely on the outside and you want it to be really lovely and light on the inside.
So, let this go for about five to six minutes or until you have a nice round smooth ball
of dough, and then we are going to get this to rise.
That looks great! It's really nice and smooth, get it all off the dough hook, as much as
you can manage anyway. Alright, now I've got a lightly floured surface here, just going
to put my dough directly on top of the surface because I just want to pull this together
really quickly with my hands, just, you know, into a ball so I can get it to rising. It's
a little sticky, but don't worry, that's why you have the flour underneath, to help you
out. Alright, just pull it together, just knead it enough so that it's no longer super
sticky. See how quick that came together? Alright now, pull this together, put it into
an oiled bowl, I've got a little leftover oil on my brush, I don't want this to be too
oily, but you do want to make sure that you oil the top as well. Alright, I'm going to
wrap this up with some plastic wrap and this has to go somewhere to rise - somewhere warm.
I've mentioned it a million times that, for me, it's my microwave, obviously without the
microwave turned on. I'm going to leave it in there for a couple of hours or until it's
really doubled in size and I'll show you what it looks like once it's there so that we can
move on to the next step. My dough has been rising for a few hours and
it's beautifully risen, about doubled in size. You can get rid of that! So, I've got a baking
tray, with some parchment paper, sprinkled a little bit of flour on top of that. That's
going to be when we place our doughnuts on there they don't stick. So, I am not a professional,
I don't have a doughnut cutter, so this is what I use: my biscuit cutter, about three-and-a-half
inches, and a little smaller one, to make a doughnut hole out of. Call it what you want,
you can call it unprofessional, you can call it whatever, works for me, they look like
doughnuts, they taste like doughnuts, so I'm not going to go buy a specific thing just
to make doughnuts, because it works just as well.
So, I'm going to take my flour (a good amount of flour) on your board, evenly sprinkle it.
I'm going to kind of punch down my dough. Oh! It's so beautiful! Take that out,put a
little more flour on top. This looks incredible, doesn't it? It's just so soft and you just
know whatever you are going to make out of this dough is going to taste good. I'm just
going to roll this out until it's about a half-an-inch thick. You can always just press
it with your hands, just make it the right thickness. I'm going to take my biscuit cutter
and dip it in my flour, dip it into my dough, then you take this little baby one, and dip
it in the middle, and you got doughnut holes. I'm just going to take that, take out your
doughnut hole, put that right next to it, they're not going to be super big because
I don't have the right cutter, but what difference does it make? Put them next to each other
a few inches apart, because they are going to rise again. I'm just going to carry on
and now out them on our baking sheets. I've got my doughnut shapes and these are going
to rise once more. They have to be covered, with a lint-free towel and let them rise for
about an hour or to double in volume again. What I'm going to do is make only a few tonight,
because it's just my husband and I, but I have friends coming over tomorrow night, so
I'm going to take the remaining dough, pop it in the fridge and then roll it out and
have fresh doughnuts and fry them up so that they are really lovely and fresh. When they
get here it will be the perfect treat. I'm going to cover these up, let them rise for
about an hour or until they double in size. In the meantime, I'm going to get some oil
up to temperature and we will fry them up as soon as the are ready.
Look at that! They've doubled in size beautifully! I have some vegetable oil up to temperature
here in a large pot. The written recipe will be up on www.LauraInTheKitchen.com, of course.
Now that's up to temperature, my doughnuts have risen beautifully. I like to take a spatula
or a device like that. They are going to cook for literally 30 seconds on each side or until
golden brown color. You want to make sure you don't overcrowd the pan though, otherwise,
it'll drop the temperature of the oil and the doughnuts will absorb a lot of the oil
and will not be crispy. Now while those are going I'm going to take a baking sheet and put some paper towels on it to catch
the oil and we are going to make the glaze.
Last one out! Oh! They look fantastic, look at those beauties! I know they don't look perfect
but they're not supposed to! This is homemade, this is from the heart, this is out of your kitchen, this is special. Now while those
are sitting. just cooling off a bit, I've got some confectioner's sugar in a really
large bowl. To that, I'm going to add a splash a vanilla extract and some
water. That's it, just a few tablespoons at a time, must mix it in with a spoon. You want
a runny consistency, but not too runny that it doesn't stick to the doughnut. Just work it in and add a little bit of extra water as you need it.
Looks fantastic! Now that's the kind of consistency you are looking for! Now, take each one, dunk it, flip it, oh yes. And put it right on there like so and continue
with the text one. I dipped all of my doughnuts in the glaze, now if you want to you can make
a little extra glaze and double dip them that way they have a really thick crust of that
suraginess but to me they are perfect as-is I don't want too much sweetness, I've had
my eye on this one this entire time I was dipping them so I'm going to try this one. Look at
that! Come close. Mmm.. In my opinion, it's as good as it gets when it comes to a traditional
glazed doughnut. What a treat! They're a treat to make, they're a treat to give to someone,
I love the homemade look to them, I love being able to say "I made you a box of doughnuts..
How do you like that?". I hope you have enjoyed spending time with me, head over to laurainthekitchen.com
to get the recipe, request any doughnut recipes you want to see next right down below, I love
to hear from you. I'll see you soon! Bye bye.