Donut Mania!

The thing about donuts is that they are only really good right out of the frying pan--any time after that they are just ok--not bad--but just not as good.  I mean, a few hours and maybe beyond they are still good but day old donuts don't have the pizazz that fresh ones embody.  I've learned that the hard way because...well...I went a little donut crazy this past weekend.  I made something like 30+ donuts of three different ilks (fyi--I'm not illustrating my pretension by using that word.  I do a lot of crosswords (NYT Monday ones only--I can't get very far on any other days...) and that word has been popping up a lot lately so when I was writing that sentence it came very naturally.  I swear!).

Anyway,  back to the donuts.  I think that donuts are some of the coolest things to make.  Also, I had this grand idea of making three different donut recipes and then bringing them into work on Monday and being lauded for my mad baking skills. And when I made each of the donuts and iced them and tested (gorged) them I was like--oh yeah, oh wow now that's a beautiful thing.  I felt like master of the donut universe!  But the next day I went back to test one more and I was like....WHAT. THE. FRACK.  I mean--like I mentioned before--they are ok the next day but the shock and awe from the previously tested (scarfed) ones was all but a dream and a memory.  It was sad.

Even sadder because I had to bring them into work and I felt that at that point they were stale.  Alas, I brought them in and luckily people did eat them.  All of them.  So I guess they liked them enough--although I do have images of them bringing a donut back to their desks, biting into one and tossing it into the trash because there faces were overcome with distaste for the dry bricks I just served them.  But that probably didn't happen.  I'm sure it didn't.  No way.  Uh uh.  Oh well.  I just wish they could have experienced my donuts fresh out of the frying oil.  Nevertheless, now I know.  And next time they will.  I mean everyone should get a chance to experience those because fresh donuts are tantalizing and can like...like melt in your mouth and stuff.

 

How I went about it:

Chocolate Brioche Donuts: 

I used this recipe from Hummingbird High (Seeing these is actually what spawned my donut making idea for this past weekend--that and I had a lot of leftover apple cider and pumpkin puree) 

For the chocolate icing I used this recipe.  It's really really good...

Apple Cider Donuts:

I used Smitten Kitchen's apple cider donuts recipe.

And for the salted caramel icing I used this.  I realize that there is also an apple cider donut recipe on this food blog as well which I used once before and they tasted good but I wanted to try using Smitten Kitchen's this time.  One note about making cake donuts:  use a lot of flour and make sure your donuts are thoroughly chilled before handling them or else it's gonna get real messy...and sticky.

Pumpkin Baked Cake Donuts:

I used King Aurthur Flour's recipe.

....And finally for the brown butter icing I went to Joy the Baker's recipe.  Splendid.