Experimental Chefery

INTRO!

Well of course I did?  Was there any doubt that I would?  Okay, before I get to the process, I want to describe how excited I am about how GOOD these things are!  I’ll make this easy.  We made 14 donuts, and about 20 donut holes with my recipe, and they were all gone after the next morning’s breakfast.  My kids LOVED these things.  My wife even loved them.  So, that’s the sell.  I’ll describe the experience in a minute.  But first…a recipe.

The basics of this recipe are a simple recipe for Yeast Donuts.  I don’t claim any special powers here…I’m blatantly borrowing a recipe.  You can get it here: http://snipurl.com/mydonutrecipe [www_foodnetwork_com].  It’s an easy and simple recipe and it uses precise measurements.  All of which are good things.

My plan

Since I’m working with an experimental idea, I figured I’d make a half-batch of donuts.  That’s the start.  Then I planned to fry up some bacon, add it directly to the dough after draining it, then glaze it with a maple-flavored glaze.  Simple plan, let’s see what actually happened.

Modding the recipe

Here are the actual measurements I used. Note that I left in the nutmeg. I thought about leaving it out, as I wasn’t sure it would work with the bacon, but I’m glad I left it in. More on that later. Here’s the actual measures:

Cooking your bacon!

This is a step that needs some attention. We aren’t talking about just throwing some long strips in the pan and letting it go. In fact, I’m pretty sure that would have been a bad plan. Now, normally when I cook bacon, I don’t even bother with a frying pan. It goes in the oven or on the grill (er, which I’m sorely lacking at the moment), but this time I had another plan. I sharpened up my knife a bit, then brought out three thick-cut strips of bacon, laid them on top of each other, and sliced them across the width of the bacon so that I had pieces of bacon about 1/4 inch wide and 1 inch long. This went into the hot frying pan along with about a table-spoon of brown sugar. Yum. Brown sugar makes my bacon sweet! That’s all part of the plan.

Once the bacon was just cooked (but not fully crispy, I didn’t want crunch in the donuts), I pulled it out of the pan and made my first mistake. Oops. Instead of putting it on my metal cooling rack to drain, I put it on a paper towel. Stupid stupid stupid!

Normally this isn’t a problem, but once you’ve candied bacon up with brown sugar, it’s sticky instead of greasy. So it sticks to the paper towel. I spent a lot of time dealing with this error, but eventually managed to work around it. Again, this is why I’m not a professional chef. The pros wouldn’t have done that. Folks-use the metal cooling rack! The one with SMALL squares! That will allow any excess grease to drain away from the bacon. And trust me, you need that, since adding grease to the dough is going to change how it behaves.

The DOH! Er, dough.

Adding the bacon to the dough went smoothly. The dough was in the stand mixer with the paddle attachment, bacon added, I turned it on for a bit, then switched to the dough hook as per the instructions in the recipe. At this point I feel the need to say something. If you are reading this and thinking “but I don’t have a stand mixer!”–get one if you can. If you are planning on doing any amount of baking over the course of your life, it will pay for itself in the long run. The time saved in kneading dough is amazing. I can’t emphasize that enough. They are not cheap, but they are worth it. END of advertisement. Sorry about that.

Dough mixed, left to rise, I went off to watch TV. I mean, I had an hour, right? Of course I did.

Cutting the donuts

And here we see the donuts, cut. Yum. You didn’t think I was going to make an entire post without pics did you? Pieces of bacon are clearly visible in the dough prior to cooking, which is good, because they blend into the color of the cooked donut. Donuts cut, I let them rise for 30 minutes…and a few extra while I finished the episode on dvd I was watching. After all a few extra minutes doesn’t hurt.  Note that I’ve got my donuts all one one sheet pan.  For a half recipe, that’s a bit crowded.  I’d highly recommend pulling out a second sheet pan and more parchment paper.  Or, if you have the counter space, just lay them out on the counter next to where you’ll have the deep fryer.  I don’t have the space for that, but if you do, it’s not a bad plan.

Cooking the donuts

I fry donuts, my wife makes a nice maple glaze. That recipe is as simple as the other. I’ll get to that in a minute though. Donuts go in the fryer at 375F, one minute each side, come out and go directly onto the cooling rack. Seriously. One minute…use your microwave timer. Keep your temperature constant. Otherwise your donuts may end up greasy. Not a good thing. A note about the oil…I used for this a FRESH batch of pure peanut oil. I am particularly sensitive to the oil I use since I get migraines. That means that old oil will really smoke up and set off a migraine for me. So I’m really careful about that. These donuts didn’t make a mess of the oil AT ALL, and I expect I could make several more batches before running into problems. Fried chicken? One or two batches before I have to replace the oil. Argh!

Glazing the Donuts

Donuts cooked, I can’t wait 20 minutes to glaze these things. We have a glaze ready, and we spoon it on. I start taking pics, and my wife, impatient, tries a donut. She’s impressed, so I start tasting another one after glazing a few more.

The WIN is strong with this one

How do I describe the flavor? It’s like having a pancake with bacon and maple syrup all in one delicious yummy bite. The texture is just a touch different, but the flavor is amazingly good. Tender, succulent bites of bacon, with just enough bite to them to make sure that they don’t feel undercooked, yet not crunchy so they don’t intrude too much on the donut’s texture.

I am extremely happy with this, and now the ball is in Big-O’s court. I wish him luck. These may just be the best donuts I have ever had.

Many donuts

See the bacon!

Single Donut