On our trip to Arizona, we were able to do so many fun things. One of the things that was at the top of my list was to make Mashed Potato Doughnuts with my Aunt, Snowflake and Pumpkin.
When I was young, my Aunt and Uncle did so many fun things with myself and my brother. I have many good memories of all the things we did with them. One of those things was my making potato doughnuts with my Aunt. I remember having fun making them and of course they were delicious to eat!
We managed to find some time to make doughnuts with my Aunt on our trip. I am so glad we did. It was a fun experience with Snowflake, Pumpkin, myself and my Aunt. It was interesting to make them as an adult and have that perspective as well.
Mix up your dough. (Recipe is below)
Roll the dough out to about 1/2″ thickness.
Cut the doughnuts out. My Aunt found this antique doughnut cutter. I remember back in the day, we used a glass to cut the doughnuts and a funnel to cut out the holes. Whatever you have will work.
In our case, we were making a lot of batches…so you may be at this for a while. Pumpkin (my 5 year old) lasted the shortest and moved on to play withLego’s. Snowflake(my 10 year old) actually lasted a long time, I was impressed. She seemed to enjoy cutting out the doughnuts – or maybe it was that no one was yelling at her for making a huge mess like at home…not sure which. 😉
As you can see from the pictures, my Aunt sure didn’t mind us destroying her house. I think I like making doughnuts at her house rather than at my house because I get a little uptight about such things as much as I try not to. Thanks Aunt ‘K’ for letting us make a huge mess at your house!
Ready to be fried! We even made a few ‘fun shaped’ doughnuts.
Into the fryer they go. This was my job. I am not sure why I picked to stand by the hot fryer for a couple of hours on a day it was 112 degrees, but I did. I never did get to do this part as a kid, so maybe that is why or maybe it was that it was away from the mess my kiddos were making. Lol! (I did help clean up…just so I don’t sound like we made a mess and ran. After which margaritas and Mexican food were in order…yum!)
Fry them up until they are golden brown. Add your favorite topping. The recipe below suggests granulated sugar or cinnamon sugar. I am sure those would be quite tasty but we went with what we had done when I was a kid, powdered sugar.
Eat and Enjoy!
Mashed Potato Doughnuts
Recipe Source –King Arthur Flour: Mashed Potato Doughnuts
Used with full permission for reprint from King Arthur Flour
- 2 1/2 cups King Arthur Unbleached All-Purpose Flour
- 1/4 teaspoon baking soda
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 2 teaspoons baking powder
- 1 teaspoon nutmeg (we omitted this and added vanilla in a batch or two instead)
- 1/4 cup vegetable shortening
- 1 cup sugar
- 2 large eggs
- 3/4 cup mashed potato
- 1/2 cup milk
- 1 1/2 quarts (3 pounds) lard, shortening, or vegetable oil, for frying
coating
- granulated sugar or cinnamon sugar, for coating
Directions
1) Sift together the flour, baking soda, salt, baking powder, and nutmeg. Set aside.
2) In a separate bowl, cream together the shortening and sugar. Add the eggs and mashed potatoes to the shortening mix.
3) Measure out the milk. Add the flour mixture and milk alternately to the creamed mixture, beginning and ending with the flour mixture.
4) The resulting dough will be quite soft, more like a drop-biscuit dough instead of a “rollable” dough. The dough can be covered and refrigerated overnight, if desired. (We did not refrigerate overnight)
5) Turn the dough out onto a very well floured surface and knead a few times to make it stiff enough to roll with a rolling pin. Roll the dough using a well-floured rolling pin until it’s about 1/2″ thick. Dip a doughnut cutter in flour (each time you cut), and cut out the doughnuts. Save the holes; or re-roll them with leftover dough. Try to handle the dough as little as possible; the less you work the dough, the more tender the doughnuts will be.
6) Heat the fat to 365°F. Test the temperature with a thermometer; or with a slice of bread, as follows: lower half a slice of bread into the hot fat. If it takes 1 minute for the bottom side to brown nicely, the fat is at the best temperature for frying doughnuts.
7) Fry doughnuts about 2 minutes on each side or until golden brown. Drain on brown paper bags or paper towels. Check one of the fried donuts after it is cooled to be sure the center is cooked through.
8) While still warm, shake doughnuts in cinnamon-sugar or plain granulated sugar.
Yield: About 2 dozen doughnuts (plus holes), depending on the size of the cutter.
There is also a King Arthur Flour blog post about making these doughnuts. You can check it out here.
Thank you King Arthur for allowing me to share this recipe!
Read other posts about our trip to Arizona:
Arizona Road Racers Summer Series 5k
An Arizona Wedding
2 Arizona Canyons (The Grand Canyon and Walnut Canyon)
Arizona Hiking (and a Museum)
Blogs I’ve linked up with:
Click over to my blog to continue reading this post.
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