Food Nirvana needed a great recipe for making glazed donuts at home. I found a typical recipe on the Internet (they were almost all identical) and I modified it virtually totally as it resulted in having donuts that were barely okay but certainly not great (too dense and cakey) and no competition for the very light and soft, slightly chewy glazed donuts made commercially. The good news is that, after some research and making a few batches of donuts with creative changes, I was very successful. Lucky you!

Note that recipes like this can (and should be) be a work in process until the magic moment when it all comes together to create your version of perfection. For example, I figured that I could enhance rising during frying by using extra egg white in the batter. I based that thought on the fact that French Crullers use only eggs and no yeast at all, and they rise a lot and are very fluffy and tender. The bottom line? Yes, additional egg white made a noticeable, nice difference.

I learned through making white bread that the addition of a small amount of vital wheat gluten made a terrific difference in quality. The gluten increases moisture and chewiness without any toughness, ergo it imparts great texture, so gluten is definitely in my recipe below. You can buy it online cheaply via Amazon®. I purchased a brand named Anthony's in a four pound bag and that amount will last for a long time for making breads and donuts.

I also learned that scalding the milk at 180 degrees F destroys milk proteins that can keep the donuts from being light and fluffy. After heating, the milk is allowed to cool to 105 degrees F. Thus, I recommend doing that step first instead of simply warming cold milk to 105 degrees F for mixing in the yeast and a teaspoon of sugar and starting fermentation.

One key to having great glazed donuts is making sure the dough rises a lot, and in frying the formed donuts at 365 degrees F. This means you adjust the dough rising time to have it somewhat more than double in size. It also means you tightly control the oil temperature, adjusting the heat as necessary before and during each frying cycle. Use an instant read thermometer to measure the oil temperature.

Similarly, on the final rising of the donuts, make sure they do expand to at least twice their starting size. The best glazed donuts are very light in texture so you don't want to fry them until they are at the optimal/large size.

Transferring the donuts to the hot oil after the final rise can be a problem because they are very soft and light and easily distorted in shape or even within one donut made to stick together side to side, eliminating the hole in the donut. You do not want shape distortion or any part of the donut sticking to any other part. For that reason I have recommended doing the final rising on a lightly oiled baking sheet that then allows donuts to slide off the end of the baking sheet easily, assisted by an oiled spatula, into the hot oil without shape distortion.

The choice of flour is important. In particular, higher gluten bread flour will work much better than all purpose flour to get the best donut texture. The King Arthur® brand of bread flour has the highest gluten content of typical commercial flours (12.7%) so that is the best brand to use. Don't waste your time using all purpose flour unless you plan to add all of the needed gluten ... which should be 15% of the total flour weight. Acquire vital wheat gluten via Amazon® and use it in this recipe as even the King Arthur® bread flour doesn't have quite enough gluten to make perfect donuts. Note that measuring one cup of flour is best done using a kitchen scale. Bread flour weighs 5.5 ounces per cup. All purpose flour weighs 5 ounces per cup. Cake flour weighs 4.5 ounces per cup.

I discovered that otherwise very plain tasting donuts were amped up a lot in flavor by adding ground cardamom to the batter. You would never be able to identify it during tasting of a glazed donut but it surely enhances the flavor. What that means is you don't have to put flavoring agents like vanilla in the glazed coating you use. In fact, that will detract from the optimal taste.

Here is a side note about making filled donuts: The JoePastry.com web site has superb directions for making raised filled donuts using a sponge dough method, which is not part of this glazed donut recipe. Some time later I will likely capture and modify that recipe and put it into Food Nirvana as a new recipe for making filled raised donuts. Think jam filled or cream filled or pudding filled with or without icing on top or dusted with powdered sugar.

Ingredients: (makes about 16 [or more] donuts and 16 [or more] donut holes)

For the donuts:

1 ¼ cups of milk (scalded at 180 degrees F then cooled to 105 degrees F)

1 tbsp. of active dry yeast

2 jumbo or 3 extra large eggs, plus two egg whites

1/4 cup of butter, barely melted

1/4 cup of Crisco® shortening, barely melted

1/4 cup of granulated sugar

3/4 teaspoon of salt

2 tsp. of ground cardamom

1 1/3 tbsp. of vital wheat gluten

4 cups of King Arthur® Bread Flour, plus a tiny bit more for rolling out the dough (4 cups equals 22 ounces by weight. Use a kitchen scale to weigh the flour to be accurate.)

Pam® or equivalent cooking oil in a spray can

2 or 3 quarts of canola or peanut oil, for frying, plus a tiny bit more to coat the dough rising bowl.

For the glaze:

4 cups of powdered sugar

5/8 cup (or slightly more) of milk

1/4 cup of honey

Directions:

Scald the 1 1/4 cups of milk by heating it in a heatproof bowl to 180 degrees F in the microwave oven. Then let the milk cool to a temperature of 105 degrees F.

Combine one teaspoon of the sugar and the tablespoon of yeast with the milk. Stir lightly to mix in the yeast and sugar and let the mixture sit until it is a bit foamy, about 10 minutes.

Melt the butter and the Crisco® in a small heatproof cup in the microwave oven and lightly mix them with a spoon.

Use an electric stand mixer (think KitchenAid®) with the regular beater and mix the eggs, butter, Crisco®, remaining sugar, cardamom and salt for two minutes on medium speed. Then add the yeast mixture and mix until the combination is well blended, about one minute.

Add the vital wheat gluten slowly and then mix for one minute on medium speed.

Add half of the flour slowly, mixing on low speed, until it is well combined, then mix in the rest of the flour slowly, mixing until the dough is uniform in texture.

Increase the mixing speed to medium and mix for about three minutes. Scrape down the inside of the mixing bowl with a soft spatula to get all of the flour into the dough about half way through the mixing.

At this point the dough should be coming together. If not, then mix it for an additional minute. If necessary, add a tablespoon of flour and continue mixing for one minute.

When the dough starts to come together (it will be sticky) stop the mixer and replace the beater with a dough hook. Then knead the dough on medium low speed for five minutes. If the dough climbs up the dough hook stop the mixer temporarily and push the dough back into the bowl with the soft spatula, then continue the kneading for the remaining time.

Remove the dough hook and let the dough rest in the mixing bowl for ten minutes.

Lightly coat the inside of a three quart bowl with a little canola oil or peanut oil. Transfer the dough to the bowl, roll it around to coat it very lightly with the oil, and cover the bowl with plastic wrap. Let the dough rise at a warm room temperature (at least 72 degrees F) or in a proofing oven at 100 degrees F until it at least doubles in size, about 1 hour.

Cut or tear the dough into four roughly equal size pieces. Use your hands to form each piece into roughly a 1 1/2 inch diameter tube. Flatten the ends of the tube against the dough. Note that the extra gluten will cause the dough to be very elastic so rolling it out in the next step to the proper thickness will make you laugh (or swear) as it will tend to come back together before you can cut out the donuts.

In turn, put each tube of dough onto a lightly floured surface, and roll it to approximately 1/2-inch thickness. Your goal is to have rolled dough just wide enough for the diameter of the donut cutter or concentric cookie cutters or drinking glass and shot glass, any of which can be used to cut out the donuts and donut holes. The dough from each tube should easily be sufficient to make four donuts plus four donut holes.

Cut out the donuts and donut holes with a donut cutter, concentric cookie cutters or a drinking glass and a shot glass.

Put the cut out donuts and donut holes on two lightly oiled baking sheets so that there is plenty of room (at least 1 1/2 inches) between each donut, and one inch between the donut holes. The baking sheets should have one edge or more without any high side because you will later gently slide each donut from a baking sheet into the hot oil for frying.

Knead the scraps of dough together from the four tubes briefly by hand into a ball, and let the dough rest for a minute before continuing/completing the rolling and cutting out process.

Roll the combined scraps of dough to form additional donuts. Repeat the kneading, rolling and cutting of leftover dough, as needed, until the scraps are less than what is needed to make one donut. That leftover dough can be cut or torn to form additional small balls of dough about the size of the cut out donut holes.

Cover the donuts and donut holes lightly with plastic wrap after spraying them lightly with Pam® or a similar product. That will keep the plastic wrap from sticking to the donuts later.

Let the donuts rise in the warm kitchen or in the proofing oven until they are puffed up and delicate, about 45 minutes.

Make the glaze using the following directions while the dough is rising:

Put the honey into a shallow cereal bowl and gradually mix the 5/8 cup of milk into it with a whisk until the mixture is uniform. Pour the mixture into a two quart bowl.

Whisk together gradually the 4 cups of powdered sugar and the milk and honey mixture until the glaze is smooth and uniform. You want the glaze to flow freely to make it easy to thinly coat the donut surfaces after frying. You can add an additional amount of milk with mixing as necessary to thin out the glaze. The idea is a spoon dipped into the glaze and then held above the bowl should result in most of the glaze easily flowing back into the bowl fairly quickly while leaving the spoon surface coated about 1/32 of an inch thick with glaze.

Pour/dispense the completed glaze back into the shallow cereal bowl, cover it with plastic wrap, and set it aside.

Now you can rest and have a cup of coffee or glass of juice while the donut dough is rising.

About 15 minutes before the donuts are done rising, put the canola or peanut oil into a heavy-bottomed pot, or a large wok, or a Dutch oven or a very deep skillet over medium heat, and heat it to 365 degrees F. Be sure to use an instant read thermometer to monitor the temperature and adjust the heat to keep the oil at 365 degrees F during the frying of the donuts.

Remove the trays of donuts from the proofing oven (if you used one). Then set the oven to 140 degrees F.

Meanwhile, place paper towels underneath two cooling racks on two different baking sheets. The towels will capture any oil drips from the fried donuts, and then later any glaze that drips from them, making cleanup simple.

Carefully add a few donuts to the oil, about four per batch. Use an oiled spatula to help them individually slide off the baking sheet into the oil without excessively distorting the shape of the donut.

When the bottom halves of the donuts are golden, after about 45 seconds of frying, use a slotted spoon and a small spatula or tongs to flip them, then fry them for another 45 seconds until they are golden on the second side. Then quickly remove them from the hot oil with a slotted spoon, placing them on one of the cooling racks.

Repeat the frying steps for each remaining batch of four donuts, adjusting the heat as needed to keep the oil at 365 degrees F.

Now put all of the donut holes into the hot oil.

Donut holes cook fast, in about one minute if mixed gently in the hot oil. Use a slotted spoon to stir them slowly in the oil and continue stirring and flipping them over (as best you can) until they are light golden in color, then remove them individually or a few at a time as they become done with the slotted spoon to one of the cooling racks.

When all the frying is done remember to turn off the heat under the oil.

Put the donut covered cooling racks/baking sheets into the 140 degrees F oven. Let the donuts and donut holes equilibrate in temperature in the oven for about ten minutes.

Remove the cooling racks/baking sheets from the oven.

Now it is time to glaze the donuts. Stir the glaze. If it seems to be too thick you can warm it for 30 to 45 seconds in the microwave oven. You might also add just a bit more milk and stir until the glaze is uniform in thickness. Or you can do both to achieve uniformity and the right viscosity for the glaze.

Dip each donut individually into the glaze, then flip it over with one or two dinner forks so it is covered on the top and on the bottom. If you want the donut to be glazed all over the outer surface then use a fork to press the donut lightly into the glaze.

Remove each donut from the glaze bowl using the forks through each side of the hole in the donut. Hold the donut above the glaze bowl and let any excess glaze drip back into the bowl for about ten seconds. Put each glazed donut onto one of the cooling racks.

After all the donuts have been glazed then glaze the fried donut holes by mixing them with a fork a few at a time gently in the remaining glaze in the bowl, then removing them with the forks and placing them on the cooling racks.

The glaze on each of the donuts and donut holes will dry within about ten minutes of being glazed.

The donuts are now ready to eat, and I'll bet you can't eat only one!

When you are ready to store the remaining donuts (if any) do not put them into a closed container or the glaze will liquify and make the donuts soggy. Cover a few dinner plates of them, only one layer thick, lightly with plastic wrap and eat the donuts within a day. They are best when perfectly fresh.

You might also try freezing some of them on a baking sheet in the deep freeze for later use. In that situation I suggest very lightly vacuum sealing the frozen donuts individually. Later, they can thaw at room temperature after removal from the vacuum sealed bags. You might hasten that process by microwaving a frozen donut on a saucer for no more than 10 seconds on high power.

Enjoy!