[quote=IzzyJG99Hole donuts have less donut to eat.[/quote]

Yeah, but the larger surface area means MUCH more powdered sugar on it! Yeah!!!

We always just used our hands to poke holes in the buscuit dough.


Is there a standard test to determine if the oil is hot enough?

A thermometer works decently enough.

Fry a test doughnut to see.

"Is there a standard test to determine if the oil is hot enough?"

A thermometer that clips to the side of the pot is what you want. OR a reliable electric frying pan that you can set to the required temp. The magic number is 375F. Only add two or three doughnuts to the hot oil at a time ... too many will cool it down and you'll get greasy squirrel doughnuts*.

Frying doughnuts can be a bit tricky... by the time the center is cooked, the outside is overcooked, thus the reason for donut holes. Besides, it's been scientifically proven that there are no calories in doughnut holes, no matter how much powdered sugar you put on them.

* Always cook squirrels separately.

Sue

Yep, it seems I was a bit too ambitious and plopped too many into the oil at one time, and the electric fry pan couldn't keep up (I'm not sure it got hot enough to begin with, I used a candy thermometer and it never got above 325 degrees, even before I plopped).

I think I am going to switch to a heavy cast iron pot and a propane burner and see if I can't get the oil up in temp. Either that or maybe go for a real deep fryer unit. I don't know as we will eat that many donuts to justify that sorta cash outlay.

Benjammin, if I got a real deep fryer, I'd end up making 'way more donuts than before - to amortize the cost of the unit!

Well, it's not just doughnuts that would bennefit from a dedicated frying unit. Think of all the squirrel.

Donuts = Krispy Kreme or Tim Horton's!

We used a bottlecap to punch out the doughnut holes when we made them from canned biscuits with my mom. Good times....

Here's the deal, and maybe I've stumbled onto something here; my wife can't take eating sugar in anything more than about 5grams per 8 to 12 oz serving. Unfortunately, the mainstream doesn't cater to her limitations, so often when we go somewhere, she has to do without. I have learned to use Splenda in place of sugar in many recipes, but hadn't tried donuts yet.

The lightbulb pops on...

Given how well certain other businesses are doing selling sugar based pastries and confections, and the apparent lack of market support for sugar free or no sugar added products, perhaps someone of resource might consider marketing said products. Imagine, a donut that is as good as a Crispy Creme, yet little to no sugar. Okay, you'd still have to inject it full of fat, but then you have Big Ben's squirrel donuts again, so I'd just have to switch to lard instead of canola oil to low temp fry my essentially sugar free donuts in.

Now, I've perfected a fudge recipe, a muffin recipe, various cake and pie recipes, and a few cookie recipes. I even have a darned good and authentic sugarfree flan recipe, that also happens to be lowfat, but we won't discuss that just yet.

Or maybe we will. Maybe it's time that the consumer is finally ready to consider some low fat, low sugar renditions of their favorite consumables. What do ya think? If I could come up with a really close knock-off, would it be worth a little extra to get something a little healthier? I could even up the soluble fiber content in a lot of things without altering the taste/texture in most cases.

Would a 10 to 15% increase in cost be small enough to be acceptable?