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?

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.