52 Weeks of Pinterest - Week 18: Donut Holes

It wasn't until I realized this morning when I woke up that we were out of my 3-year old's favorite breakfast food - cereal.  I pulled up Pinterest with him so we could look for something fun to make that he would find appealing.  The first and only thing that sparked his interest was the recipe for Donut Holes from Cooking Classy.

I reviewed the recipe and was happy to discover that, with the exception of buttermilk, we had everything we would need already.  Not having buttermilk was an easy fix since I learned many months ago how to cheat that ingredient.  For those who don't know, you add 1 tablespoon of white vinegar to a measuring glass then fill it with regular milk until you have 1 cup total.  Mix it and let it set for about 5 minutes... Presto!  Instant buttermilk.

If you want to see the recipe and Jaclyn's steps for yourself, you can check out her blog here.

Ingredients:

1 1/4 cups all-purpose flour

2 tsp baking powder

1/4 tsp salt

1/4 cup milk

1/4 cup buttermilk

1/4 cup granulated sugar

3 Tbsp melted butter

2 cups vegetable oil, for frying

Granulated sugar, cinnamon sugar or powdered sugar, for coating

Instructions:

- Preheat your oil oil over medium heat in a pan or pot to 350 degrees.  Be sure to watch your oil as it's heating  if the temperature isn't right, the donut holes won't turn out right either.

- In a small mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, and salt.  In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the milk, buttermilk, sugar, and melted butter.  Use a fork to stir the dry ingredients in; mix just until combined.  The dough will be sticky... don't overmix.  

- Once the oil is ready, measure out 1/2 tablespoonfuls dough and using your hands gently roll into a ball, being careful not to overwork the dough.  I'll admit that the dough can be difficult to roll - we did more of the drop method, using a fork to help shape the dough and drop it into the oil.

- Gently place dough ball into oil and fry until golden brown on bottom then flip and cook reverse side until golden brown.  Carefully remove with metal tongs or a fork and drain onto a paper towel lined plate.  Roll in sugar.  Repeat this process with remaining dough. 

A couple of notes from our trial:  

1.  The dough itself is fairly sweet so you don't want to overdo it with the cinnamon sugar or powdered sugar.  I actually served them with a little bit of plain cream cheese, which balanced out nicely with the light sprinkle of cinnamon sugar. 

2.  If you use 1/2 tablespoonfuls as stated, you should get about 30 donut holes.  Since there were only three of us eating and my son was hungry (plus he was helping make them and measuring only works for so long), we ended up with 12 oversized ones.  They still cooked all the way through and tasted great!