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not martha

to make: tiny donuts


with fork


with quarter (I'm trying to prove how very precious they were)


in Scott's hand... but not for long


the donut holes were about the size of marbles and puffed into nearly perfect spheres, it was almost a shame to eat them. amost.


I called them my Sugary White Balls.




I'm particularily proud of this one because it looked properly donut-y from the side. It was the larger size.



the chocolate glazed ones, on a small plate, just so you know 		I made some little donuts, and they were yummy. I used the recipe for dainty donuts from Martha Stewart, however since this calls for an overnight chill in a fridge I wonder if the recipe from something like Baking Illustrated would have worked just fine. The dainty donuts are the creation of Callahan Catering and they have scans of thier Martha Stewart Weddings Summer 2003 mini food spread here - note, click on those and you'll get PDFs.

I used these Wilton circle fondant cutters to make the donuts. They weren't quite the right proportions but, you know, donuts! Nobody was complaining. The recipe calls for a 2-inch circle cutter and a 3/4-inch cutter. Before I found the fondant cutters I asked the good people at Home Cake Decorating Supply about 3/4" cutters (they have that set of like 12 nested cutters but the smallest was 1 inch) and was told that cutters don't usually come that small and to substitute a wide round pastry decorating tip. So know you know.

I didn't add enough flour to the recipe to begin with and ended up with a too-sticky dough, as a result I added more flour to roll it out and probably made the donuts a bit tougher than they should have been. I found they were lighter the longer I let the cut out donuts rise before getting them into the oil (which I took a ridiculous amount of time getting set up).

This was the first time I'd ever deep fried anything and found these very satisfying to do. The dough puffed up immediately and bobbed merrily until it was time to turn over. I used two bbq skewers to lower, flip and raise the donuts. I let the donuts cool a moment and dunked them into the sugar while still very warm. I took some advice from Baking Illustrated and used (trans-fat free) vegetable shortening, three cups in a tall pot. I did about three donuts at a time and had a lot of trouble keeping the oil to 350 degrees on my (miserable) electric stove. I used regular sugar instead of superfine sugar because that's what I had in the house.

The chocolate glaze is from Baking Illustrated. In your mouth it has the texture of chocolate glazes from donut shops, but it tasted all wrong (that being, like actual chocolate). I used a semi sweet Valhrona chocolate. I bet something a lot cheaper and possibly even milk chocolate would have tasted more authentic. You know, not like chocolate but like chocolate-flavored? Anyhow, it could have used a few seconds in the microwave to warm it up enough to get it to slide around a bit more before setting.

I highly recommend trying to make little donuts sometime.