The Kids in my Kitchen: Donuts. Or Doughnuts.

The moral of today's story is "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again".

After seeing this come up on my blogroll the other day, my plan for today was set. We love donuts and although I had never made them before the recipe seemed simple enough, and I thought Makenna would learn a good lesson about how yeast works.



Turns out, I learned more of a lesson about yeast then she did.



First, get 1 1/4 cups of milk.






Heat it so that it's not hot, just warm. I went for "baby bottle" temperature.


As I look at this picture, it strikes me how young Makenna looks here.

Then you add a packet of yeast to dissolve in the warm milk. Simple right?





I could not get past this step. This one wouldn't dissolve, it just kinda clumped. So I did a swagbuck search about dissolving yeast. And found this page, which is full of good info for people like me who have no idea what they are doing. I added some sugar to the mixture and warmed it up again.

I got a second mixture going with another 1 1/4 cups of milk and another packet of yeast. I was still doubting the process as it was not "dissolving". I was getting frustrated. How could I not be "getting" something so simple? I was frustrated, but determined. As if sensing it, my mother in law, "knower of all things baking", phoned at that exact moment to talk about Christmas presents. I asked her a bunch of questions. She said by the sounds of it, it wasn't right. She suggested I go get some different yeast and told me what to look for as it dissolved, to know I was doing it "right". She even dissolved some yeast at her own house, so that she could explain it to me better. She said it should get "frothy"...kinda like how a cappucino looks on the top.

Okayyyyyyy......

Sometimes having your family living almost an hour away is frustrating. Growing up, my grandma lived across town from me and in this situation would have just come over to help me. It would have taken 5 minutes. Jeff's brother lives about 10 minutes from his parents and if they were having an issue like this, it would be close enough that she could just go over and help if she wanted to. That is not an option for me with any of our family now that we live in Goderich and they live where they do.

So the kids and I went to the Grocery Store and got this. And we started all over - my third attempt at dissolving yeast into milk. And yeah, I got more milk too.

While you are waiting for your yeast to dissolve, get together your dry ingredients. We did this before we went to the store.

4 cups of flour, 3/4 cup of white sugar and a sprinkle of salt.

Give it a stir.

When your yeast is dissolved into the milk,

add to it 2 tbsp of oil, 2 tsp of melted butter,

and 2 eggs.

All of this was providing good math lessons for Makenna too. "We need 4 cups of flour. You both want to help...how can we do it so that it's fair?"..."we need 2 eggs, both of you want to help...how do we do it so that it's fair to both of you?"

stir it all up and add to your dry ingredients

Mix it all together until you get a ball of dough.

Place your ball of dough in a greased bowl and leave it for an hour to rise. On my first attempt, it didn't rise.

So, with my newly purchased "quick rise yeast" I started everything all over and did everything exactly the same. I warmed the milk to baby bottle temperature, added the packet of yeast and about a tsp of sugar, stirred it up and then got all the dry ingredients together again while I waited.

Lo and behold, the second time, there was a thin little layer of "froth" on the milk/yeast mixture. At least I figured there was. It kinda looked like a cappucino would, I really had no idea. So I went ahead with it again.

The second time around, Grandma Wormington suggested I preheat my oven to 200 F, then turn it off, cover the bowl and let the dough rise in the oven for an hour. So that's what I did.

Yay, my first time using the new oven!

Now you can find what you're going to use to cut out your donuts. Anything from around the house that will cut the appropriate sized holes will work. These were our donut cutters. LOL. The wide one is for the donut...the bottle is for the donut hole...obviously you can use whatever you have that will work.

After an hour, we pulled the bowl out of the oven and...

Yay!!! It rose!!! Thank you Grandma Wormington!!!

Of course Jack had to touch it. Makenna was just excited it worked. As was I.

Next you roll out the dough to 1/2 inch thickness. As we were doing this, Makenna said "hey, I've done this before!"

Then it was time to cut out our donuts, which each of them took turns doing

Even though I seem to only have pictures of Makenna doing it, I promise you Jack played just as equal a role.

Jack did really well with the rolling pin too...under the watchful eye of his sister of course.

Donuts

And donut holes

I then let them rise for 90 mins. As the dough did so well in the oven earlier, that's where I put them this time to rise again. But I didn't preheat it or anything. And I didn't cover the pans.

After 90 mins they looked like this:
Makenna did think that was pretty cool.

Then you bake them at 375 for 10 - 12 mins, until the tops are golden brown.

While they are baking, get your toppings ready. I went for simple, with melted butter and a mixture of equal parts white sugar, brown sugar, and a sprinkle of cinnamon.

When they came out of the oven I was somewhat doubtful, thinking they looked like and were going to taste like regular rolls or bagels from a bakery, not like donuts.

We went ahead and brushed the melted butter on

yep, back t the dress up clothes, another Sunday tradition...

and rolled them in the sugar mixture...

Notice the Silly Bandz rings...

Mmmmmm...... they are SOOOOOOO good. The don't taste exactly like donut shop donuts, but they are still very very very good. Jeff ate two before supper and one for dessert!

As long as you can get the yeast to cooperate, these are simple to make, and not terribly unhealthy either.

This is the recipe I used, but I also read from this page too, to confirm what I was doing. I would definitly make these again. As long as the yeast cooperates. And then I will make glazed toppings for them too.

Once the yeast worked, I was excited to make all kinds of things...breads, rolls, mmmmm...so many possibilities!

I spoke to my mother in law on the phone at least 3 times. I was frustrated. But determined.

Yeast. so simple, yet....not.

And yeah, I know some of you reading this do this with your eyes closed. But this was new to me. I'm just glad it finally worked!

And yes, I know Canadians spell it "doughnut". But I like "donut" better.

:)