Doughnuts

Ah, October; the gentle introduction to winter, the month of mild, crisp mornings and chilly, grey evenings.  The time when you find yourself getting reacquainted with the coat you said goodbye to in March, and thinking about how you quite fancy a pair of those sweet little mitten-gloves, with the Fair Isle pattern that whispers coaxing promises of softness and warmth whenever you pass Accessorize.

At least, that is what October is meant to be like.  Although you wouldn’t think it to look at me (after two weeks in Corfu I’m still so deathly pale that I frighten ghosts), I love sunshine and basking in a belated summery glow as much as the next person; but this is going too far.  So, turning an angry back to the weather, I decided to make a fried dessert, designed to provide slovenly policemen, hungry theme park goers and a particular cartoon character with a healthy layer of winter fat.  All together: mmmm, doughnuts...

In reality, that came out sounding more like: er, doughnuts?  I used the recipe from Roald Dahl’s Revolting Recipes for ‘Bunce’s Doughnuts’, and while they were definitely not revolting, they were also not very much like doughnuts.  A weird mixture between bread and bagels, maybe, but not the irresistible, sugar-drenched, custard-oozing feat of pure, deadly joy that is American doughnuts.  In fairness, it would have been difficult to fit the oozing part in, as the middle was rather taken up with being a hole, but the point still stands that if you are expecting those amazing, melting buns of wild hedonistic delight, this recipe is not for you.  That said, they came out tasting nicely of cinnamon and the texture, although it was different, was still tasty. 

I should probably mentions that there were two separate altercations with two different fire alarms during the frying process, and that from this I have learnt that frying large batches of doughnuts will result in sore eyes, a vexed housemate and a newfound respect for hot oil as a powerful and dangerous enemy.  If you make these and burn yourself on the oil, it may not hurt at the time; it will, so run it under the tap for ten minutes (or some minutes, anyway; I don’t entirely believe anyone has ever held a burnt limb under a cold tap for more than six minutes and seven seconds without getting bored), dry it and put washing up liquid on, as this cools it down.  I also learnt that the better doughnuts were the ones that were rolled the thinnest.  I’m not very good at rolling out dough (I’m way too impatient to wait for it to bend to my will) but I eventually learnt the knack and the extra effort was worth it.

So the doughnuts, like the weather, turned out to be very nice, but still a disappointment for someone expecting something else.  In fairness to the recipe, these are tasty, but a cookbook devoted purely to dangerously unhealthy doughnuts is on its way at the moment.  Sorry to all the super-tanned summer fans out there, but I’ll also be hoping that those sunny, cold, real autumn days are on their way too.