I have never made doughnuts. I know, it’s crazy. I figured it couldn’t be that hard to make because it’s just dough or batter fried in hot oil. I was so wrong. I made two batches of over fried, under fried and too large doughnuts before finally getting the hang of it. I have a new-found respect for doughnut makers everywhere.

Ingredients:

2 cups canola or vegetable oil for frying

2 1/4 cup AP Flour

1/3 cup sugar

1/4 cup milk

1/2 cup beer (I used Palmero from Hangar 24)

1 tablespoon of baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of ground cinnamon

1 egg (slightly beaten)

1/4 cup olive oil

Directions:

1. Put the 2 cups oil in a skinny and tall pot for frying. You want your doughnuts to float and not touch the bottom. Heat to around 350-375 degrees. If you don’t have a thermometer you can put a wooden spoon in the oil and it if bubbles then it’s ready.

2. Mix the dry ingredients and then pour in all the wet ingredients. It’s okay for the batter to be lumpy, you don’t want to over-mix the dough otherwise the doughnuts will be tough.

3. Using two spoons, put the batter into small balls and drop into the hot oil. Fry until golden brown. It should take 2-3 minutes. You want the balls to be small, the size of a quarter. Otherwise  if you make the balls too big, the outside will cook faster than the inside and no one wants that.

4. Once the doughnuts are ready, remove them from the hot oil and place on a plate with paper towels for draining and cooling.

5. After the doughnuts have had a chance to cool down, about 5-10 minutes, you can roll them in powdered sugar or a sugar/cinnamon mixture. I did both options, just for fun.

The beer gave these doughnuts a wonderful flavor. Not overly sweet and not too savory. Palmero is a Belgian Dubbel with flavors of dates, rum, spice, caramel and raisins. Perfect to integrate into baking. They added a fantastic spice character to the doughnuts, which played off the added cinnamon nicely. The outside was ultra crunchy while the inside was cakey and moist. I would totally make this again. It would be so perfect for entertaining a late-night crowd!