Fresh Doughnuts, Anyone?

J. announced on Friday that he would like to make doughnuts.

[Mind you, implicit in this innocent suggestion was the thought that I would in fact be heavily involved in the production and clean-up.]

I declined the project on grounds of a planned trip to the local Wal Mart for groceries, followed by some much-needed house cleaning.

 I should have known I hadn't heard the last of the doughnuts!

The idea resurfaced this afternoon and it was obvious that nothing was going to put a spanner in the works.

I could [cheerfully] lend my culinary skills or watch from the sidelines while J. got going.

We used to make doughnuts during the Vermont years---when we had more family around to help eat them.

Fresh apple cider with warm doughnuts is an autumn tradition in New England, and they are pretty good at other times of the year as well.

Strangely, during the dozen years in Wyoming, we never made any.

Several months ago I unpacked a few cookbooks.  The one with my cherished recipe for buttermilk doughnuts went back in the carton--which went back into the stack, which went back into the space under the basement stairs.

I made a half-hearted search for the cookbooks, then resorted to the internet.

A quarter hour of reading recipes turned up one that seemed similar to the "tried and true."

By this time J. had hurried up to the store for a gallon jug of cooking oil and was impatiently clattering skillets in the kitchen.

Getting in each others' way in the small space, I beat eggs, oil and sugar while J. measured out clabbered milk and the flour.

[The wooden-handled fork J. is using was handed down from my great-grandparents' kitchen.]

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Making doughnuts is a two-person task. I rolled and cut the dough, while J. deep-fried, turned, and then shook the warm rounds in a cinnamon/sugar mixture.

I put the kettle on--tea for me, coffee for J.--and we sampled our wares and found them very tasty.

If we take to making doughnuts regularly we shall have to share them or we shall turn into blimps.

J. heaped a plate with some and drove next door to present them to D.H. and his wife.

They were having bacon and pancakes as a mid-afternoon "supper" and invited J. to sit down.

Being rather full of doughnuts he declined a plate of pancakes, but was more than willing to "visit."

[Which gave me a chance to clean up the mess in peace!]

D. and S. declared that the doughnuts were a fine finish to their meal!

Now--what to do with the rest of them?