Printer Friendly

Home
MOM’S SPUD NUTS

1 cup mashed potatoes
½ cup shortening
½ cup white sugar
1 ½ teaspoons salt
Juice and rind of ½ a lemon
(Grate the yellow skin off the lemon using the finest portion of the grater and then slice the lemon in half and squeeze out the juice. Be sure to remove all seeds.)
3 eggs
½ teaspoon nutmeg
2 cups warm water
1 teaspoons yeast
1/2 cup powdered milk
6 ½ cups white flour (approximately)
Glaze: 1 cup milk and 1 pound powdered sugar and vanilla to taste.
Measure and heat water making sure it is quite hot before you add shortening, mashed potatoes, salt, spice, sugar and lemon. Cool to lukewarm before adding eggs. Whip ingredients together. Add yeast. Let set until yeast is dissolved and foams to the top.

Sift some of the flour with the powdered milk to avoid lumps.

Stir in 5 ½ cups flour mixed with powdered milk all at once. You need to use judgment as to whether or not to add the last cup of flour. You must be careful to add only enough flour to make a soft, sticky dough.

Cover and place dough in a warm area to raise until double in bulk. Punch down with a large spoon and let raise a second time.

Punch down again and pat out a third of the dough onto a lightly floured surface. Sprinkle a small amount of flour on the top to keep your roller from sticking and roll dough out to about 1/2 inch thick. Cut into doughnuts and place on a lightly floured cookie tin. Shake excess flour off doughnut or dust it with a small pastry brush.

Place cookie tin in a warm spot to raise. Fry when the doughnut has raised a little more than double in bulk.

Prepare a tall heavy metal sauce pan by filling it three or four inches deep with vegetable or canola oil. Turn on your burner to medium high. Test oil with one of the doughnut holes. It should be hot enough to brown the dough on one side in about 15-20 seconds. Do not let the oil get so hot it smokes. If you have a thermometer it should be kept around 375 degrees.

Lift your doughnuts over with a long fork but don’t pierce it. This keeps the doughnut sealed so it doesn’t saturate with oil. If you keep adding doughnuts to the hot oil it will keep the oil from overheating. Don‘t take a break or leave the oil unattended. Cook each doughnut about 15 - 30 seconds on each side or until golden brown. Stay with the oil until all the doughnuts are fried.

Break open a doughnut from time to time. If the oil is too cool the doughnut will be taste greasy. If you let your oil get too hot the doughnuts will be raw in the middle.

Place cooked doughnuts on a rack or paper towel to drain. When you’re finished frying remove your oil pan from the burner and push it to the back of your stove so curious bystanders will not accidentally tip over the pan and get burned.

Prepared the glaze. Dip the cooked doughnuts in the glaze then prop the doughnut upright on the rack to drain. Be sure to place a cookie tray beneath your rack as the doughnuts will shed lots of glaze. Excess glaze will catch in the tray below the rack and can be used later to dunk the remaining doughnuts. One pound of powdered sugar should make more than enough glaze to cover the entire batch. If you run out, shake the remaining doughnuts in a paper sack filled with a little white sugar.

Makes approximately 30-40 doughnuts.