Today is a holiday.

But, it doesn’t feel like a holiday.

Holidays for me are always about family and food. Matt and I have done one holiday alone together- it was good, different, but we chose it. Today we face timed with both our parents at one point or another. It was nice, but it was odd. We watched a sermon via the internet. We would have chosen to be with family today but we want to be responsible and follow the directives from our governor and protect Matt’s parents. Although we are really trying to stay positive, we thought about what we are missing today, being with family and creating memories with our niece and nephew.

Since Matt and I were on our own today we decided to be a little fancy. For breakfast we made donuts and for dinner we made quite the spread with smoked meat, hasselback potatoes, deviled eggs, and a fancy spinach salad. While I am a baker, I didn’t make dessert because I had dark chocolate cadbury mini eggs that I somehow squirreled away form myself last year. They pair quite nicely with wine, by the way.

Anyways let me tell you about the donuts. I know that is what you care about most.

For starters. I don’t like donuts. Not the typical kind anyways. I like the old fashioned cake like sour cream glazed donuts. Like the ones that come in the Franz box. I know.. right? (insert shoulder shrug). My dad used to buy these when I was a kid okay?, don’t put sprinkles on them, don’t even out chocolate on them, gasp. Plain ol’ Jane ol’…

I’m off on a tangent again. I have wanted to make donuts for a while but there are a few things that held me back. 1.) hot oil scares me and I have never really fried anything 2.) I never could find a recipe that I really liked. 3.) Time- I though donuts took a long time but they were surprisingly simple. Now I do have to take them to work… so I don’t eat them all.

Donut Ingredients:
1/2 C sugar
1 t lemon zest
2 T butter
2 egg yolks
1 t vanilla
2 1/4 C Flour
1 t baking powder
1/2 t salt
1/2 t nutmeg
1/2 t cinnamon
1/8 t ground vanilla or vanilla bean
1/2 C sour cream
cinnamon sugar or glaze

Glaze:
1/2 c powdered sugar
2 T milk
1 T maple syrup
1 t vanilla

I always start with all the prep for a recipe. I think it makes it easier. I seperate and measure and prep my work space. So I mix all my dry ingredients first. Flour, baking powder, spices, and salt. Then I put my sugar and lemon zest into my mixer, mix on low and add my butter.

While I cream the butter and sugar I sift my dry ingredients. Once the butter and sugar are creamed I add my egg yolks and vanilla. Then I alternate adding my flour mixture, then sour cream, flour mixture, sour cream, then finish with flour. I use a 1/4 C measure but don’t level it completely off. By the time I am done the dough is combined yet sticky. Chill for 1 hour.

While the dough chills, walk your dog, drink coffee, hang out with your husband, and prep your next steps. I set up for frying, a new and scary task. I also had to find some sort of cutter for my donuts. I do not have a donut pan, or a donut shaped cut out. What I do have are mason jar lids and the lid to a cocktail shaker. And those, my friends are what I ended up using to cut my donuts today. See- you don’t need fancy things!

I rolled my dough out on a floured surface and cut them out. While I rolled out the dough we let the oil come to temp.

We do not have a thermometer that goes above 220, we just have a meat thermometer so instead of temp, we did al of our testing with our donut holes. Because I was paralyzed by fear, I made my husband fry the donuts. He did a swell job. A+ husband. While Matt was the fry-master, I did the glazing and cinnamon sugar batheing.

They turned out.