Daring Bakers Challenge: Doughnuts

Each month the Daring Bakers presents a baking challenge to its members in an attempt to stretch their culinary horizons -- previous challenges have included attempts at Baked Alaska, cheesecake pops and sugar cookies, to name a few. The October 2010 Daring Bakers challenge was hosted by Lori of Butter Me Up. Lori chose to challenge DBers to make doughnuts. She used several sources for her recipes including Alton Brown, Nancy Silverton, Kate Neumann and Epicurious.

For this month's task, I chose the yeast dough recipe from Alton Brown. I faced a few challenges off the bat, not the least of which was being out of town without my trusty Kitchen Aid mixer and supplies. But the process was easier than I thought, despite doing everything by hand. The end product was a sort of rustic, hybrid beignet -- this one tossed with granulated sugar instead of powdered sugar -- and cut roughly into squares with a knife. They were light, airy and addicting, and tomorrow's batch will be enjoyed with a cup of homemade hot cocoa (recipe to come!). I recommend giving it a try.


A sticky mess!

I was missing my mixer right about here!

This thing balloons to almost triple the size after about an hour.

Let em rest for 30 minutes then fry. I only used about a fourth of the dough. It's enough to feed an army.

Yum!