Time to make the doughnuts ....

Every year, my MIL and I get together to make doughnuts. I can make the dough, cut the doughnuts out, etc. with no problems. But man, I do not like deep-fat frying at all. The whole thing scares me with all that hot oil.

So for many years now, my MIL makes the dough and has it ready when I get to her house on Saturday morning. I'll roll out the dough and cut the doughnuts. While they're rising, we'll work on something for lunch (she told me that she wants to try a new bean recipe for lunch, so I'm making a salad to go with that). Then I fry the doughnuts while she sits in the living room reading the newspaper. She knows I don't like to do that and she knows that I'm very leery of hot oil. So it became job, simply because I'm so wary around the oil.

And she says that when she's not around anymore, somebody has to keep up with these traditions. And that person is going to have to be me. Years from now, I'll have some fond memories of making doughnuts with my wonderful MIL.

No doughnut from Dunkin Donuts or any place else, for that matter, can compare to a homemade doughnut! Anybody else ever make doughnuts?

I've never made a doughnut, and never had a home made 1. I bet yours are very good!

Mmm, warm donuts.

I have made donuts. Nothing fancy, just tasty.

I made doughnuts with my daughter when she was growing up. Of course, I had to be very careful with the hot oil. She loved doing it and dipping the in confectioner sugar and chocolate.

Yes, I have made those that you just drop by spoonfull in the oil. I don't fancy hot oil either.

Your mil sounds like a foreward thinking lady. She knows she can count on you to continue the tradition.

You have a nice mil and she has a nice dil too.

Fresh doughtnuts sound heavenly!
If you're leery of the oil, you might want to invest in a frying/splatter shield.

Happy cooking!

I have made donuts. I love them dipped in cinnamon and sugar

Nope. I wouldn't even know where to begin.

I do have a deep fryer though.

I've made both doughnuts and bagels. Doughnuts are a lot less work.

my grandma used to make them like that. she'd roll them in sugar. they tasted so good still warm

I volunteer to be a taste tester!!

My Mom made some about a year or so ago. She has a fry-daddy that she uses. It's not big so it's easier to control the oil. She just has to do less at a time. But they were soooo goooood!

My Grandpa likes to make (I do not know how to spell this so I'll go for a phonetic version...) pizza-freet. It's sprinkled with powdered sugar and I guess more like funnel cake than a doughnut; but that's what I grew up eating as a home-made type treat like that.

I've never made doughnuts myself, but when I was a kid, back in the good old days when we knew AND trusted all the neighbors, there was an elderly couple who did homemade doughnuts and apple cider on Halloween, so all of us kids knew when we got to Grandma and Grandpa Miller's house for trick-or-treating we would get a fabulous treat. And yes, we ALL called them Grandma and Grandpa...

When I was in Scouts, we used to have donuts for one breakfast every campout. We used canned biscuits and poked a hole in them! Worked like a charm!

This thread makes me

I've never made doughnuts, but I've made elephant ears, MMM!! The only problem is that you and your house reek of grease for weeks after

I do love me some fresh Krispy Kreme though

Yum!! Homemade donuts are one of my favorite things in the world! I'm drooling now, just thinking about it! Fresh covered in table sugar. MMmmmm!!

Farleyv, thank you for your kind comments! She is, indeed, a nice MIL....it took me a few years to realize what a treasure she is. I try to be a good DIL and we do a lot of things together. She is 90 years old and she's a amazing lady.

She has an old (really old) electric saucepan that we use for frying the doughnuts and that's the only thing it's used for. The temp gauge sticks right around 400 degrees, which is the perfect temp for our doughnuts. She's told me several times that saucepan is to come to me and that I'm to continue making doughnuts for everybody. And I'll continue the tradition; by now, it's part of our family. (Isn't it funny how many family traditions seem to center around foods?)

April, I do have a splatter screen that I use on those rare occasions when I'm frying something. My biggest fear, though, with deep frying is fire. I'm afraid that I'm going to tip over the kettle or trip over the cord, or whatever that could possibly happen will happen. I really hate deep-frying for that reason.

We used to make two kinds of doughnuts, a Portuguese doughnut that I simply spooned into the fryer. And then the kind we roll out. But we realized that that's a lot of doughnuts! So we've decided to just make yeast roll-out doughnuts tomorrow. We usually make both a chocolate glaze and a vanilla glaze, but to be honest? I think I'd just rather have them tossed into a bag with a bit of sugar.

I have a recipe for muffins that are supposed to taste just like doughnuts and they're baked instead of fried.....which would be perfect for me. I should try that out sometime.

Ah hah! You know what they say! There are some things (i.e. art, music, food, dance, etc.) that surpass any language and food brings people together!

Good placement of the chord and placing the pan on a sturdy surface should take care of those fears. Unless you're dancing while cooking... You seem like a careful person as it is so I have nothing to more to suggest but... please send me some doughtnuts!