How To Dress Up Your Donuts

There are so many ways to do this, isn’t there? Here are a few of our favorites:

Rolled in cinnamon-sugar right out of the fryer? Absolute perfection.

Draped in vanilla glaze? Not so horrible either.

Dunked in chocolate glaze then coated in toasted coconut? Sweet heavens!

Overhead photo of a Classic Cake Donut. This one has been dunked in chocolate glaze and then in toasted coconut.

These donuts are without a doubt a special occasion treat and being that they take about 2 hours to make, I can’t see us making them often. But when that homemade donut hankering hits again, we’ll be ready!

Maybe even for the pool days that lie ahead of us this summer.

Travel note: Seriously, if you traveling I-84 through Connecticut, get off at exit 15, drive north on Rt. 67/6 into Woodbury (about 3.5 miles) and stop at Dottie’s Diner on the right. It’s a light blue building at the end of a short row of stores. Freaking.amazing.doughnuts.

Instructions

To make the dough: Whisk the flour, sugar, baking powder, cinnamon, and salt together in a large bowl. In a 2-cup glass measuring cup, whisk the milk, egg, butter, and vanilla together. Pour the wet ingredients over the dry ingredients and mix them together with a rubber spatula only until just combined. Cover the bowl with plastic wrap and refrigerate for 1 hour.
To make the coating and glazes:
For the cinnamon-sugar coating: Mix the sugar and cinnamon together in a medium bowl until well-combined.
For the chocolate glaze: Place the chocolate in a medium bowl. Heat the half-and-half until simmering, pour it over the chocolate and stir until the chocolate melts. Slowly whisk the sugar into the chocolate until completely incorporated.
For the vanilla glaze: Whisk the sugar, half-and-half, and vanilla together in a medium bowl until well-combined and no lumps of sugar remain. Add extra half-and-half by the teaspoon until the glaze reaches your desired consistency.
To fry the donuts: Heat the oil in a large Dutch oven or wide stock pot over medium-high heat.
Transfer the dough to a well-floured work surface and roll the dough out to ½- to ¾-inch thickness. Using the cutter of your choice, cut the dough into rounds then pop out the centers of the rounds with a smaller cutter or large round pastry tip.
Once the oil has reached 365° F (use a candy thermometer for this that attaches to the side of the pot), gently lower 3 or 4 of the donut shapes into the oil. They should sink then rise to the top. The oil temperature will likely drop so you’ll need to turn the heat up a little in order to keep the temperature up – keep an eye on it – you want to maintain the oil temperature around 365° F. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes per side until they are puffed up and deep golden brown. Using a slotted spoon, transfer the donuts to a paper towel-lined baking sheet to drain. Repeat with remaining dough.
As soon as you can safely handle the doughnuts, roll some of the donuts in the cinnamon-sugar mixture – the coating sticks better when the doughnuts are still really warm. Allow the other donuts to cool for a few extra minutes before glazing with the chocolate and vanilla glazes.
Keep leftover donuts covered at room temperature. They will last no more than a day if they aren’t all eaten first.

Notes

To cut the dough for these donuts, any round cutter will work – biscuit or cookie cutters are perfect. In a pinch, you could also use a glass or just cut them out by hand with a knife. If you don’t have a donut cutter, you’ll also need something to cut out the centers and a large round pastry tip works great for this. We got 8 really big donuts from this recipe and would likely make them smaller the next time as they were almost overwhelmingly large.

adapted from allrecipes.com via How Sweet Eats | coating/glazes adapted from Annie’s Eats

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How To Dress Up Your Donuts