Old Fashioned Beauty

There are really no words to express how satisfying it feels to be able to replicate something I have so loved since childhood.  Each ring of dough I watched float to the top of the bubbling oil kept me in awe.  As those signature cracks revealed themselves and blossomed, I could only keep repeating, "Oh my God, these f*ing rock!".  To glaze them and see them all lined up on the rack, looking perfectly imperfect, was an otherworldly joy.  To eat them was to transport myself back to those wonder years, when an "old-fashioned" could cure all ails.  It was as if I had just found something I'd lost, but didn't realize how much I had missed it until it appeared again.

All sappy sentiment aside, these old-fashioned's are everything you want and need in a doughnut : soft, cakey, tender, light and sweet.  The first couple frys didn't yield the flowery crevices I was aiming for, so I figured a couple slashes with a razorblade would facilitate the blossom effect.  Yes!  It worked!

Please try it for yourself.  They are just as good eaten the morning after they're made.. trust me, I know!

Old Fashioned Doughnuts

About 20 doughnuts with holes

540 g  cake flour

10 g  baking powder

6 g  salt

200 g  sugar

60 g  butter

zest of a lemon

seeds from 1 vanilla bean

80 g  yolks

340 g  sour cream

Whisk together cake flour, baking powder, salt, in a bowl.  Set aside.

Cream sugar, butter, zest, and vanilla together until sandy.  Add yolks and sour cream.

Add dry ingredients.  Wrap into a flat square block and chill for at least an hour.  Even when chilled, the dough is very soft.

Roll to 1/2" thick on a well floured bench.

Cut out 3" circles with holes and hold them on a sprayed plastic tray (or tray lined with Silpat) until ready to fry.

Make 3 slashes with a blade on the surface of dough (see picture below).

Fry at 325F and flip often to help the cracks expand.

Drain on paper and allow to cool.

Glaze.

I don't have a recipe for the glaze, but I started with a bowl of 10X, zested in a lemon and orange, along with their juice and seeds of a vanilla bean.  I splashed in some bourbon and whisked in enough skim milk to make a liquid glaze consistency.  Dip the cooled doughnuts into glaze to cover both sides and shake the ring well to let the excess fall back into the bowl.  Allow the glazed doughnut to dry on a rack.