Make Your Own Top Pot Doughnuts

As a baker, I enjoy cooking, but I'll admit that baking just cakes can become tiring at times.  But that doesn't mean that I don't want to experiment with other kinds of sweet treats.  For Christmas I received the most awesome doughnut book - it was Top Pot Hand-Forged Doughnuts: Secrets and Recipes for the Home Baker.  I can't tell you how much I have enjoyed this book.  It's not just a recipe book; you get stories about how Top Pot got its start, and you get loads of information on what ingredients they use and why.  It's amazing how different doughnuts are than cake.

To date, I have made the three basic doughnuts; yeast, sour cream, and cake.  The sour cream ones have been my favorite, but tonight as I was making a batch of cake doughnuts I thought this might be something that you guys might be interested in too. I'm going to provide the recipe here, but it you like doughniuts you should really get this book!

Basic Spice Cake Doughnuts
Taken from "Top Pot Hand-Forged Doughnuts" (Chronicle Books)


INGREDIENTS
2 3/4 cups cake flour,  plus more for rolling and cutting
1 tsp baking powder
1 tsp iodized salt
3/4 tsp ground nutmeg
2/3 cup sugar
2 TBS shortening
1 large egg, plus 1 large egg yolk
2/3 cup whole milk
Canola oil for frying

Powdered Sugar or cinnamon sugar, as a coating (optional, but not really ;-) )

DIRECTIONS
1. Sift the flour, baking powder, salt, and nutmeg into a large bowl. Set aside for later use.

2. In a stand mixer with a paddle attachment, mix the sugar and shortening for 1 minute on low speed, until sandy. Then add the egg and egg yolk, and mix for 1 more minute on medium speed, scraping the sides of the bowl as necessary, until mixture is thickened and light in color.

3. Add the dry ingredients to the wet ingredients in three separate batches, alternating with the milk, mixing until just combined on low speed each time. The dough will be very sticky. Transfer dough to a clean bowl and refrigerate, covered directly with plastic wrap, for 1 hour (or up to 24 hours).  I found that my dough was REALLY loose, so I added about a 1/4 cup of flour to the dough.  It worked much better!

4. Heat your deep fryer (or large pot of oil) to 370 degrees. Gently roll out the chilled dough on a floured surface until roughly 1/2 inch thick, using more flour as necessary. Using a doughnut cutter, cut as many doughnuts and holes as possible, dipping the cutter into flour before each cut. Fold and gently re-roll the dough to make extra doughnuts.

5. Remove any excess flour off the doughnuts before adding them to the oil, taking care not to crowd them. Once the doughnuts float, fry for about 1 minute per side. Drain on paper towels, and roll in powdered sugar, or cinnamon sugar while still hot.

Enjoy making your doughnuts!!

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