Creative Cooking: Doughnuts Shishmaref Style

Last week I took a cooking lesson from one of my favoritest students. She brought over her grandma's doughnut recipe, and we gave it a whirl.





This is not a frothy heated beverage. It is yeast and warm water. It was the first step of the Shishmaref doughnuts.



I was feeling pretty lazy, so I decided to try to mix the dough in the bread maker. Our Kitchen Aid is still in Washington, and I really didn't want to stir everything by hand.





Things got a little un-okay when I added the eggs. The bread maker created this little yellow vortex surrounded by a majority of the shortening and sugar.





I used a little wooden spoon action (or maybe it was rubber spatula action) to scrape the sides, resulting in a more appropriate egg/shortening/sugar mixture.





I added the flour...





and let the dough rise for a few hours.





We rolled it out. My cooking tutor rolled her dough thicker than the dough in the above picture. I ended up re-rolling mine in order to have more thickness.





We used glasses to cut the dough into circles. I was informed that my glasses are, in fact, too small to make proper doughnuts.





My cooking tutor showed me how she uses her fingers to make the doughnut holes.





After letting the doughnuts rise for about forty-five minutes, we threw them in hot oil. The above picture is of my pot of hot oil and doughnuts.





This pot belongs to my cooking tutor. You'll notice that she has significantly more doughnuts than mine. That's because she's a doughnut pro, and I'm a mere amateur.





I was satisfied manning my four. That way I could flip them over when they were golden.






Our effort resulted in a pile of doughnuts. This is just one of the piles.





I added my own little twist to the Shishmaref dougnuts: toppings! I've almost always seen doughnuts in Shishmaref served plain (like the one on the right). We topped ours with powdered sugar (that was Steve's idea), maple frosting (the one on the upper left that looks like glaze), and chocolate fudge frosting (left over from some killer cake I made a while ago).

The verdict: two thumbs way up!!! I had to give most of the doughnuts away so that we wouldn't eat them all...

Here's the recipe for Shishmaref Doughnuts:

3 packets of yeast
1 c warm water
2/3 c shortening
2/3 c sugar
2 tsp salt
3 eggs
1 c Milk
7 c flour

Mix the yeast with the warm water and set aside. Mix the shortening with the sugar (using a bread maker is fine and especially labor saving). Add the eggs, milk, and salt. Mix. Gradually add flour. Mix.

Knead the dough (or let it go through a dough cycle in your bread maker). Let the dough rise until doubled in size.

Roll out the dough. Cut it into appropriate doughnut-sized circles. Use your thumb to make doughnut holes. Let the doughnuts rise until doubled in size.

Heat oil. Put the doughnuts in the oil. Flip when golden. Take out of the oil and drain on paper towels.

Enjoy plain for an authentic Shishmaref experience. Frost for a little VFN flair.