My dear friend Veronica from La V En Rose sent me a gift for my birthday that is certainly going to keep on giving. She knows that Don has been a bakin' fool lately and she is also very aware that I love doughnuts so she was very sweet in giving me a book on making them at home knowing that it would immediately become Don's newest adventure in baking when he saw it. The book is Doughnuts: Simple and Delicious Recipes to Make at Home and the photographs and recipes are all by Veronica's friend, Seattle writer and food photographer Laura Ferroni. Check out her blog www.cookandeat.com! It is a truly stunning look at the art of food. Yum!
Within minutes Don was researching flours, sugars for frosting and how to best use the nifty doughnut baking pan that was also a part Veronica's gift to me. The pan allows for doughnuts without the frying! It took me a really long time to narrow down which doughnut I wanted Don to bake first. Vegan, non-vegan, fried, baked, frosted, stuffed, fruit, chocolate. These were all options spinning around in my head after looking through the book but I finally decided on non-vegan French Crullers. Both a batch with sugar icing and one with chocolate frosting.
We opted for the baked version in the new pan.
There is something pretty magical about eating a doughnut right after it is finished cooking. They were still so warm that we couldn't even keep the frosting on.
The book lived up to it's name. I highly recommend checking it out. From a spectators perspective the doughnuts seemed simple and they were most definitely melt in your mouth delicious. I asked Don and he said didn't find his first doughnut making experience difficult.
Next up: The Creme Brulee Doughnut. Quite possibly much more difficult that the crullers. I'll let you know how it goes. It's hard being the official baking experimentation taster...
