Baked Doughnuts

I love doghnuts. Love love love them. And I really enjoy making them so that their uber-fresh goodness can right right from the cooling rack to my hand to my open and anxiously awaiting mouth. The only downside to doughnuts is that, in most cases, you fry them. That makes my love nest smell gross. That's why these baked doughnuts are a no-smelliness, healthier alternative to the traditional fried dough.



And....these babies are absolute pillows to bite into. They are so, so soft.







Ingredients:

1 1/3 cups warm milk, 95 to 105 degrees (divided)

1 packet active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)

2 tablespoons butter

2/3 cup sugar

2 eggs

5 cups all-purpose flour

a pinch or two of nutmeg

1 teaspoon salt



For the Cinnamon Sugar:
1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted

1 1/2 cups sugar

1 tablespoon cinnamon


Method:

Place 1/3 cup of the warm milk in the bowl of an electric mixer. Stir in the yeast and set aside for five minutes or so. Be sure your milk isn't too hot or it will kill the yeast. Stir the butter and sugar into the remaining cup of warm milk and add it to the yeast mixture. With a fork, stir in the eggs, flour, nutmeg, and salt - just until the flour is incorporated. With the dough hook attachment of your mixer beat the dough for a few minutes at medium speed. This is where you are going to need to make adjustments - if your dough is overly sticky, add flour a few tablespoons at a time. Too dry? Add more milk a bit at a time. You want the dough to pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl and eventually become supple and smooth. Turn it out onto a floured counter-top, knead a few times (the dough should be barely sticky), and shape into a ball.
Transfer the dough to a buttered (or oiled) bowl, cover, put in a warm place (I turn on the oven at this point and set the bowl on top), and let rise for an hour or until the dough has roughly doubled in size.
Punch down the dough and roll it out 1/2-inch thick on your floured countertop. Most people (like myself) don't have a doughnut cutter, instead I use a 2-3 inch cookie cutter to stamp out circles. Transfer the circles to a parchment-lined baking sheet and stamp out the smaller inner circles using a smaller cutter. If you cut the inner holes out any earlier, they become distorted when you attempt to move them. Cover with a clean cloth and let rise for another 45 minutes.
Bake in a 375 degree oven until the bottoms are just golden, 8 to 10 minutes - start checking around 8. While the doughnuts are baking, place the butter in a medium bowl. Place the sugar and cinnamon in a separate bowl.
Remove the doughnuts from the oven and let cool for just a minute or two. Dip each one in the melted butter and a quick toss in the sugar bowl. Eat immediately if not sooner.
Makes 1 1/2 - 2 dozen medium doughnuts.

Snookums Snickerdoodles

I think "snickerdoodles" is just one of the most fun words for my mouth. I have a bunch of words that I love to say, like snoochums, snickerdoodles, muffin, ma cherie (which might be more of an expression), sushi, supercalafredjulisticexpealadocious, and many more which might actually be better than these, but when I put myself on the spot, I just can't remember them all.

What I can remember is that these cookies are T-A-S-T-Y tasty. I love snickerdoodles. And I like my snickerdoodles fat and soft, pillowy even. I'm not one for those thin, crispy ones. If you're like me you're gonna want to try these little babies.

They're in need of some tweaking, next I'm going to try making them with butter instead of shortening and with a little less cream of tartar, but I thought I'd share the unmarred recipe and then you will be free to try them yourself, or wait and see if I can make them better. The choice is yours.

Ingredients
1 cup shortening
1 1/2 cups white sugar
2 eggs
2 3/4 cups sifted all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 teaspoons cream of tartar
1/4 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons white sugar
2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

Method
Preheat oven to 400 degrees F (200 degrees C).

In a large bowl, mix together the shortening and 1 1/2 cups of white sugar until smooth. Stir in the eggs one at a time, blending well after each. Combine the flour, baking soda, cream of tartar and salt; stir into the batter until blended.
Roll the dough into balls the size of small walnuts. Roll in a mixture of 2 tablespoons sugar and 2 teaspoons cinnamon. Place 2 inches apart on an ungreased cookie sheet.
Bake in the preheated oven for 8 to 10 minutes or until lightly browned, but still soft.

One side note: I was a bit startled by the dryness of the dough. When I try this recipe again, I think I might decrease the flour by a smidge, but not much. I figured that the dough was wet enough for the cinnamon sugar to stick to it, but not so wet that the sugar melted and burned during baking. That is a good thing. Trust me, no one really likes that burnt sugar flavor.

And another one: cook these 8 minutes...no more!! Possibly 7 minutes. I tried various times and anything over 8 minutes equals one hard cookie after it cools. Not cool. :)

**Amendment!!! 10/18/2010**
I tried this recipe again, but I only used 1/2 tsp cream of tartar instead of 2 tsp and 1 cup butter instead of 1 cup shortening.
Results: USE 1/2 tsp cream of tartar unless you like tart cookies!! 1/2 tsp = perfect. 2 tsp=WAYYYYY too much.
As for the butter, it made my cookies more flat, but still very soft. So they were tasty, just not pillows like I like 'em. So I think I'll stick the shortening 'cause goodness know I love me some pillowy cookies.