The October 2010 Daring Bakers’ challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.
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I can’t say I eat many doughnuts these days, though I have glorious memories of midnight college Krispy Kreme runs. Hot doughnuts practically melting in my mouth? Good heaven.
So when I saw this challenge, I was convinced that it would be complete ecstasy. Homemade is always better than commercial, right?
Meh.
I used the Alton Brown yeast doughnut recipe for this challenge. While I didn’t have any of the challenges I anticipated (overly sticky dough, sputtering oil, burning my first few batches), I just didn’t like the flavor of the doughnuts all that much. After reading Audax Artifex‘s post in the forums, I increased the sugar from 1/4 cup to 1/3 cup; I’m not sure that even 1/2 cup would have been enough. They had a really lovely texture (very light and crisp on the outside, airy inside, not too greasy), but I thought they were pretty bland. I used a powdered sugar and cream glaze to dress them up, but even that didn’t improve them much for me. This was almost a relief, actually, because I wasn’t tempted to eat them all!
I’m glad to have the experience of making doughnuts and I may try again, but I’ll use a different recipe. Thanks for organizing the challenge, Lori!
Recipe link: Yeast Doughnuts
