How To Fry The Perfect Homemade Donuts

This is a guide that I’ve been wanting to post for a while but I never actually got round to it. I finally took all the pictures I need, wanted to show you some of the steps that I think are important, then when it was time to write up the post those pictures just disappeared! That just got me annoyed so I postponed this post but alas it is time to share my donut making knowledge 😉 pics or no pics 😂😂

I’m going to try my best to explain everything clearly  because making donuts can be so fun, especially glazing and decorating them! 🙂

Let’s begin, here are a few of my favourite tricks:

• Start with a decent dough recipe that’s already risen and is ready to cut. I always roll out my dough to no less than 1/2 an inch thick. This is because I like my donuts puffy so I find this to be a good starting point, just under 1/2 an inch is perfect.
• Place your cut out donuts and holes on a heavily floured tray like I did (pic below). This is one of the most important steps because when it’s time to pick up the donuts to put into the oil, you don’t want them sticking to the tray, deflating and ruining their shape. This is after I’ve let them rise for the second time to puff up and get all nice and fluffy. Notice how I’ve floured the tray:

• As the donuts rise and are almost ready, prepare your oil. Now here is where I wanted to show pictures because it is super important not to over crowd the saucepan. A good rule of thumb is to always place one donut less than the space available meaning if your pan is big enough to fit 4 donuts at a time, only put in 3 donuts. This allows each donut to cook evenly at the right temperature. If you add too many, the donuts will need longer to fry which risks them sitting in the oil too long becoming oily and greasy. Too little donuts in the pan, the donuts will fry too quickly on the outside while the inside isn’t fully cooked risking burning. So just remember, 1 donut less than the amount that fits 👍
• Once the donuts have risen and are ready to fry, carefully slide a flipper, I use a hamburger flipper ;), underneath each donut and gently lower into the oil.
• Make sure your oil is heated to the right temperature. If the oil is too cold then the donuts won’t cook properly and will become super oily, they need to start frying as soon as they touch the oil. 180C is a good temperature if you have a thermometer to check. My favourite way of checking oil temperature is to toss a small piece, about an inch of bread into the oil and time how long it takes to fry. It should take 1 minute to become golden brown, less than that, oil is too hot and needs to be lowered slightly, more than that then the oil is still too cold. Hope I haven’t lost you guys yet! 😉
• Allow the donuts to fry until golden brown, about 45 – 60 seconds then flip over to fry the other side. As they are frying, keep a wad of kitchen paper towels close. As soon as the donuts are done, take them out of the oil and place onto the kitchen towel. Leave them for about 5 seconds then flip them to the other side. Do this again so each side gets dried on the paper towel twice (I sometimes do this 3 times) then place the donuts on a wire rack. At this point I lower the next batch of donuts into the oil.
• Once the donuts on the rack are cool enough for you to touch, dip them immediately in the glaze(s) that you’ve prepared. The donuts should be quite warm while you glaze, dip them flat into the glaze then lift up and hold upside down for a couple of seconds. Turn them over slowly, allowing any excess glaze to drip off then place on wire rack to continue cooling.

I really hope I haven’t made this post too long but I really want everyone to have the best possible outcome when frying donuts.

See it took me a while to get my technique right! When I first started making donuts, I couldn’t for the life of me figure out how to make them come out good. They were always too oily or soggy, wonky or burned, flat, crispy, you name it! Any problem that can happen with donuts happened to me and I did soo much research to figure out how to prevent all these issues.

Of course most all of what I learned came from trial and error 🙂

So to sum up, rise your donuts on a floured surface, oil should be hot, dry on kitchen towels super important, glaze warm and cool on wire rack 😉

Hope you guys have a blast the next time you find yourself making donuts and remember, eat one for me 🙂